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BRERETON GREENHOUSSTEPHEN J. HARRIS

Canada and theBATTLE OF VIMY RIDGE

9-12 April 1917


Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Greenhous, Brereton, 1929- Stephen J. Harris, 1948-Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917 Issued also in French under title:Le Canada et la Bataille de Vimy 9-12 avril 1917.Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 0-660-16883-9DSS cat. no. D2-90/1992E-12nd ed. 20071.Vimy Ridge, Battle of, 1917. 2.World War, 1914-1918 — Campaigns — France.3. Canada. Canadian Army — History — World War, 1914-1918. 4.World War, 1914-1918 — Canada. I. Harris, Stephen John. II. Canada. Dept. of NationalDefence. Directorate of History. III. Title. IV.Title: Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge, 9-12 April 1917.D545.V5G73 1997 940.4’31 C97-980068-4

Cet ouvrage a été publié simultanément en français sous le titre de :Le Canada et la Bataille de Vimy, 9-12 avril 1917 ISBN 0-660-93654-2

Project Coordinator: Serge Bernier

Reproduced by Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters

Jacket: Drawing by Stéphane Geoffrionfrom a painting by Kenneth Forbes, 1892-1980Canadian Artillery in Action

Original Design and ProductionArt Global384 Laurier Ave.WestMontréal, QuébecCanada H2V 2K7

Printed and bound in Canada

All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the Minister of PublicWorks and Government Services.

© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (1995)Catalogue No. D2-90/1992E-12nd ed. 2007ISBN 0-660-16883-9


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors have a number of people to thank. At theNational Archives of Canada, Barbara Wilson helpedwith official records and Tim Dubé made certain that wewere aware of all relevant manuscript collections, whileJoan Schwartz, Andrew Rodger, Peter Robertson, and particularly Les Mobbs, assisted with the selection andreproduction of photographs.

We would also like to thank our colleagues at theDirectorate of History who read, and commented upon,our initial drafts, and the Directorate cartographer,William Constable, for his painstaking work in revisingand preparing the ancient negatives of maps from G.W.L. Nicholson’s official history of the CanadianExpeditionary Force in the First World War.


‘A nation is a body of people who have done great things together in the past and who expect

to do great things together in the future.’

F. H. Underhill The Image of Confederation (1964)


Ninety years ago, Canadians defined who they were based on their region, province, culture and ethnic communities. Ournational identity was little more than a vague notion.At thattime, when Canada was still carving out its place on the worldstage, our country was called to fight alongside the Allies duringthe First World War. History would remember the victories andcourage of our soldiers, but if there was one battle that wouldforge our national identity, it was the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

On Easter Monday 1917, the four divisions of the CanadianCorps lined up together and seized a commanding German position that had proven to be too much for the French andBritish. But victory had not come lightly: 3 500 Canadian soldiers fell during that mission.The account later told by thesurvivors was moving. They spoke of the horror, of course,but also of the feeling that they had achieved something of greatimportance. Standing atop Vimy Ridge, looking down in victory over the Douai Plain, they knew that they were foreverbound to one another.When that terrible war ended, each would return to their homes with a new awareness and a desire to call themselves, more proudly than ever, Canadians.

On the 90 th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, we honour those men who fought so courageously for their countryin the name of freedom and justice.

Michaëlle JeanNovember 2006


Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge

The Dominion of Canada was just 50 years old in April 1917 when 100,000 of her 8 million citizens fought and won the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

It was the biggest Allied victory of the Great War to that point, but it was much more than that. Brigadier-General Alexander Ross, commander of one of the four Canadiandivisions that stormed the Ridge, put it best:

“It was Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific on parade,” he said. “I thought then thatin those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.”

Indeed he did. Canada emerged as a nation that twice rose to the defence of the homelands of her two founding peoples and became a powerful force for peace in theworld. To this day, Canada is a nation that never flinches from its duty to stand up forfreedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Our ancestors built a magnificent monument atop Vimy Ridge to immortalize this seminalmoment in our nation’s history. This year marks the 90 th anniversary of the battle, the dedication of the completely refurbished monument, and the republication of this superbbook, Canada and the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

I invite all Canadians to honour the 3,598 brave souls who fell in that battle by readingthis book and someday, if possible, making a pilgrimage to the hallowed ground inNorthern France where modern Canada was born.

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P.Prime Minister of Canada


CHAPTER I


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CHAPTER I

PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS

In all his thirty-six years, Jack Harris had

never been a man to spend much time

with pen or pencil. His schooling had ended

at the age of fourteen and he had become

a bricklayer — a trade that, at the turn of the

nineteenth century, required few writing skills

beyond those necessary to sign for his pay.

Nor, in March 1917, as a mere private in the

(now permanently) dismounted 4th Canadian

Mounted Rifles was he privy to the counsels

of Sir Douglas Haig, the commander-in-chief

of the British Expeditionary Force in France.

Even the smaller-scale intentions of General

Sir Henry Horne, the commander of the British

First Army, with which the Canadian

Corps was serving, and Lieutenant-General

Sir Julian Byng, the English aristocrat

who commanded the Corps for the time

being, were quite beyond his ken. He

had not yet heard shots fired in anger, and

he could hardly have known that he was

about to participate in an apocalyptic battle.

One, it has since been argued (by better-

educated and more influential men than

Jack, who were also there) that played

a notable part in creating a Canadian identity.

All Private Harris knew was that he

would soon be going into the trenches for

the first time. Perhaps it was simply the

imminent prospect of killing or being killed

that led him to start a diary. He kept it

intermittently, in pencil (in a surprisingly

neat and trim hand) in a scrubby little

soldier’s notebook, eight centimetres by

thirteen, that he carried in the pocket

of his tunic; and a month after he began

it he would record how a very ordinary

man, who had been born and raised in the

English countryside and essentially still

thought of himself as an Englishman despite

seven years in Canada, helped to make

both military and Canadian history — and

all unwittingly make himself into a Canadian!

The 9th of April, 1917, found him

jammed together with several hundred of

his fellow-soldiers in a tunnel cut through

the chalk that underlay the south-western

slopes of Vimy Ridge.There were many

more men — thousands of them — waiting

in other tunnels and caves, all safe for the

moment against German shot and shell. They

were faced by other hazards, however.

Most of the thirteen tunnels, ill-lit by electric

lights strung along the rough walls, were

half a kilometre or more in length and only

a metre wide. Many of the occupants were

there all day and half the night, smoking,

sweating, eating cold food and drinking

lukewarm tea brought up in dixies, farting


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and using barrels as toilets. Amazingly,

not one of them one seems to have

been asphyxiated, nor is there any account

of someone developing claustrophobia.

With time to think, what did Jack Harris

think about?

Easter SundayVery different to any other

I have spent. Stay all day in tunnel,

waiting for morning & the advance.

Cannot put here all I thought of that

day but felt I would come through

somehow. Hope to spend next Easter

in a far better manner. Had mail from

Lou and kiddies — very acceptable.

The next morning, minutes before first

light, in snow and hail and rain, more

than twenty-five thousand Canadians — with

another ten thousand close behind — rose

out of their trenches and tunnels along

a seven-kilometre front and began to

trudge up Vimy Ridge behind an awesome

curtain of artillery fire mostly laid down

by Canadian guns and gunners. Harris was

among them, in the middle of the first

wave.When he found time to record the

next two eventful days his prose was

terse, flat and simple.

Left tunnel [at] 3:30 a.m. for

jumping-off trench.Mud to knees

as usual. About 4:15 a.m. came the

order to go over. At the same time

[a] terrible barrage from our artillery

opened up. Terrific — no other

word describes it.Walked over top

(too loaded to run). Lost track

of rest of section.Very little return

fire from Fritz. Shot at twice by

Fritz from mouth of dug-out. [He]

Missed. Threw bombs in after

him & left him to ‘A’ Co[mpany’s]

S[ergeant]-Major. Found rest of

party at Swichern [Zwischen] Trench.

All had been more or less lost.

Everything going fine. Made

the objective in quick time and

then helped RCRs to dig in and

hold line.Were told relief would be

in at night, but no such luck.

Stayed in front line until Tuesday

midnight, then took back to

supports (Swichern). Lots of rain

and snow all the trip. Relieved

by 60th [Battalion] 8 p. m.

The attack did not go quite so easily

everywhere along the front, but by

that same Tuesday midnight Vimy Ridge,

a natural fortress held by the Germans

since October 1914, had fallen into Canadian

hands at an amazingly small cost in lives.

This was the greatest victory that the Entente

— the British and French alliance — had

yet achieved in nearly three years of fighting.

How did it come about? And why was it

so important in the evolution of Canadian

nationhood?


Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry,formed almost exclusively from former Britishservicemen resident in Canada at the outbreak of war (and many of them from the west), leaves Ottawa’s Lansdowne Park for Valcartier. [LAC PA 23278]

“The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Toronto’s RoyalGrenadiers mingle with friends and family as they march to Union Station to catch thetrain to Valcartier. [LAC PA 5122]

When Britain was at war all the King’s subjectswere at war. Volunteers from the Files Hills Indian Colony who joined Saskatcbewan’s 68th Battalion, together with members of their families. [LAC PA 66815]


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CANADA AT WAR

The causes of the First World War lie

beyond the scope of this book and have

been much disputed by historians, but it is

certain that they had nothing to do with

Canada. Nevertheless, when Great Britain

declared war on Germany and her Austro-

Hungarian ally in August 1914, Canada,

as a British colony sharing a British king,

found itself automatically at war, too.

Generally speaking, that was not an unpopular

circumstance in a simpler, more naïve

world than that in which we live today.

Many people, particularly those of British

descent, welcomed the opportunity to stand

at Britain’s side in what they viewed as

a righteous cause.

Especially in western Canada there were

numbers of British-born men who still

thought of themselves primarily as Britons,

with all the privileges and responsibilities that

implied. Most of them enlisted as a matter

of course just as soon as they could get near

a recruiting station. And many young men

born in Canada were equally keen. In their

minds there flourished a rather romantic

conception of war as a sporting contest,

a sort of gigantic game in which some poor

devils — but not many — would undoubtedly

be killed or mutilated.They, of course, would

not be among the unfortunate few.

Others, in a stagnant economy (and an

era without any governmental social security)

simply saw soldiering as a better bet than

unemployment and an empty belly. Native

people from all across the Dominion enlisted

readily at first, perhaps because in their

communities warriors had traditionally enjoyed

a prestige that modern young Indians found

it hard to acquire.The fighting on the Western

Front would bear little resemblance to the

kind of guerilla warfare that their forefathers

had excelled at, but they could hardly know

that at the time.

Despite a casual and often bungled

recruiting process, and haphazard mobilization

marked by the energetic but eccentric style

of Minister of Militia (and enthusiastic amateur

soldier) Sam Hughes, the First Contingent of

a Canadian Expeditionary Force was in England

by mid-October,* thirty thousand strong but

with mostly inexperienced officers and men only

half-trained in the barest fundamentals of

soldiering.They spent a wet and muddy winter

on Salisbury Plain, learning simple military

skills but never dreaming that their experience

with Wiltshire mud would serve them in such

good stead in Flanders and Picardy.

With them were fifty of the one hundred

‘graduates of almost every hospital training

school in Canada ... among whom were some

French Canadians’, according to Lieutenant

(Nursing Sister) Mabel Clint of Montreal,

hurriedly commissioned into the Army Medical

* Joining the convoy off St. John’s was a ship carrying 537 officers and men of the Newfoundland Regimentwho were not part of the CEF. Newfoundland, not yetpart of Canada, sent its own little expeditionary force,one battalion strong.


The First Contingent crossing the Atlantic. [LAC PA 22731]

Arriving at Plymouth. A British officer watching them disembark thought that the Canadians would be fine “if their officers could be all shot.” [LAC PA 22708]

Nursing sisters from the francophoneCanadian General Hospital that served theFrench army. [DND PMR 87-465]


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English-speakers, cronies of Sam Hughes,

and one way or another there was

very little encouragement for unilingual

francophones to enlist.

There were prominent French Canadians

most anxious to see their community play

a full part, however; and as early as 10 September

La Presse, Montreal’s leading French-language

paper, had reported on their approach to

Ottawa with the idea of forming a two thousand-

strong francophone regiment.That would

have meant two battalions, but some patriotic

citizens were even thinking in terms of

four battalions, or a francophone brigade.

La Presse noted that French Canadian

members of the Conservative administration

in Ottawa, as well as Sir Wilfrid Laurier,

leader of the opposition Liberals, supported

the proposal. Both La Presse itself (linked

to Laurier) and La Patrie (financed by

Conservative businessman Hugh Graham)

backed the idea. Indeed, there was a

surprising degree of agreement throughout

the francophone media.An ad hoc

committee, half-Liberal and half-Conservative,

that included the Premier of Quebec,

Sir Lomer Gouin, the mayor of Montreal,

Médéric Martin, and a variety of senators,

judges and influential journalists, pressed

for the creation of a French-speaking force.

Representatives met formally with Prime

Minister Sir Robert Borden on 28 September

to put their case, and Borden took the

Service ‘for the duration of the war’. Most

of the other fifty went with the first Canadian

Expeditionary Force unit to reach France,

crossing the Channel on 8 November 1914, to

help with British casualties until the arrival

of the 1st Division and the onset of the Second

Battle of Ypres brought them compatriots

to treat.*

It was not quite so easy to recruit another

twenty thousand men for a Second Contingent,

the last of whom arrived in England in June

1915.‘The most enthusiastic centres were in

the West and Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton,

Calgary, could have raised thousands where

hundreds were required,’ recorded the

Canadian Annual Review for 1914,‘Parts

of Ontario and Quebec seemed slow in

their response; New Brunswick raised a

Regiment after weeks of work and many

public meetings and Nova Scotia did

the same.’

For French Canadians, particularly

Quebeckers, part of the problem was

language.Although the pre-war militia

was pragmatically bilingual in Quebec

(and Ottawa paid lip service, at least,

to the concept of a French-speaking militia)

the initial Canadian Expeditionary Force

was an exclusively anglophone institution.

Recruiting officers everywhere, even in

Quebec, were all too often unilingual

* By the end of the war, 2,400 more nurses would haveserved overseas.


Practising for Flanders! Dinner time on Salisbury Plain. [LAC PA 5032]

The 22nd Battalion at St Jean, Quebec, preparing to go overseas. [LAC PA 4912]

German troops secure on Vimy Ridge, autumn 1914. [DND PMR 91-014]


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opportunity to thank Dr. Arthur Mignault of

Montreal who had offered $50,000 (a much

greater sum then than now) towards the cost

of such a force.Three weeks later a Cabinet

order authorized the formation of specifically

French-speaking units although, as in the

rest of Canada, recruiting did not live up to

expectations. Only enough volunteers

came forward to establish one battalion.

Numbered as the 22nd Battalion, CEF, it

became part of the Second Contingent — the

precursor of today’s Royal 22e Régiment

du Canada, or (in unofficial English) the

‘Van Doos’.

No wonder that recruiting was becoming

more difficult.The carefree and romantic

had mostly gone off with the First Contingent

and the unemployed were finding jobs in

an economy that was beginning to expand.

Beyond that, the harsh and painful reality of

modern war was now recognizable in the

reports of war correspondents appearing in

the newspapers. By November 1914 an

initially mobile Western Front had solidified

into trench lines that stretched from the

Swiss Alps to the North Sea.There were no

flanks left to be turned on the low-lying

Flanders plain and the terrible triad of

artillery, machine-guns and barbed wire made

frontal attacks prohibitively expensive at

a time when tanks were not even on the

drawing board. By the end of 1914, after

five months of fighting, each side had lost

more than three-quarters of a million

men killed, wounded or captured.

THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE

Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry,

a battalion recruited almost entirely from

British Army veterans* and therefore requiring

less training, reached France (as part of a

British division) in December 1914.The

1st Division followed in February, in a welter

of confusion. Private Alexander Sinclair had

something to say about that in his diary.

There’s an expectant stir in

camp this morning, and there’s

more bustle, and sans doute

the usual confusion — the word

‘confusion’ has become synonymous

with ‘Canadian contingent’; and

just recently I have heard it referred

to as the ‘comedian contingent’....

But there’s excuse, and to spare, for

we are expected to leave this

afternoon ... for France.

The divison arrived in time to play a very

minor part in the battle of Neuve Chapelle,

where it incurred only a hundred casualties.

Tunes of glory could still echo briefly in

young mens’ ears but only six weeks later

came the Second Battle of Ypres, when

the Canadians found themselves in the midst

of the fighting and the Germans employed

poison gas — chlorine — for the first time

on the Western Front.

* At the instigation of Hamilton Gault, a Montreal businessman, who had provided $100,000 towards its cost.


Lieutenant-General E.A.H. Alderson, the British general officer first selected to command the Canadians. He had had Canadians under his command in the South African War, fifteen years earlier. [LAC PA 168103]

No 3 Casualty Clearing Station, July 1916. Primitive by today’s standards, but better than anything before it. [LAC PA 104]

Clumsy and uncomfortable but generally effective, an anti-gas box respirator of the kind eventually introduced in August 1916. [LAC PA 928]


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Gas warfare had been prohibited

by the Hague Convention of 1899,

which all the major protagonists had

signed, but that prohibition had not

been re-affirmed in the 1907 Convention.

Nevertheless, the Entente troops had

no gas masks or anti-gas training.‘We had

been warned some days before that an

attack would probably be made by the

Germans with gas,’ wrote Major Victor

Odlum of the 7th Battalion,‘and we were

told to take necessary precautions [but]

we could not visualize an attack with

gas ... and we did not know what were

the necesary precautions. And no one

could tell us.’

French colonial troops on the Canadians’

left, exposed to the worst of it, panicked

and fled on 22 April 1915.The Canadians

held firm, pulling back the left of their

line to hold the shoulder of the gap and

then moving up their reserve brigade to

join British troops in bringing the enemy

to a stop three kilometres short of Ypres.

Forty-eight hours later a second gas attack

fell directly upon the 1st Division. Major H.H.

Matthews, commanding a company of the

8th Battalion, which bore the brunt of the attack,

recounted what he saw and felt in a letter

written shortly after the battle.

The wall of vapour appeared to

me to be at least fifteeen feet in height,

white on top, the remainder being

of a greenish-yellow colour. Although

the breeze was of the slightest, it

advanced with great rapidity and was

on us in less than three minutes.

It is impossible for me to

give a real idea of the terror and

horror spread among us all by

this filthy loathsome pestilence. It

was not, I think, the fear of death

or anything supernatural, but the

great dread that we could not

stand the fearful suffocating sensation

sufficiently to be each in our proper

places and able to resist to the

uttermost the attack which we felt

sure must follow.

Matthews’ fears were unfounded.

When the attack began Victor Odlum

noticed ‘a strange new smell.... A

queer brownish-yellow haze was blowing

in from the north. Our eyes smarted.

Breathing became unpleasant and throats

raw.... Some fell and choked, and writhed

and frothed on the ground.... It was the gas.’

But there was no panic as men with wet

cloths wrapped about their noses and

mouths* — urine was better than water,

they found! — gave ground slowly, inflicting

heavy casualties on the enemy. A private

* Smoke helmets — chemically impregnated bags with transparent celluloid windows, to be worn overthe head — were issued two months later.The first‘small box respirators’, or proper gas masks, were notintroduced until August 1916.


General Alderson decorates an unknown Canadian lance-corporal (and grenadier, by his arm badge) in the aftermath of Second Ypres. Behind the corporal, others wait their turn. [DND DHist-1]

Dr. John McCrae, for whom the poppies blew in Flanders fields and who died of pneumonia in 1918. [DND CF66-473]

A German trench wrecked by artillery fire, July 1916. Onthe ground, close by the bodyof a German soldier, his waterbottle, mess tin, and lootedback-pack. [LAC PA 128]


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in the British Army’s Seaforth Highlanders,

who arrived on the scene the next day,

recalled how his section ‘stopped at a ditch

at a first aid clearing station.’

There were about two to three

hundred men lying in that ditch. Some

were clawing at their throats. Their

brass buttons were green.Their bodies

were swelled. Some of them were

still alive.They were not wearing their

belts or equipment and we thought

they were Germans. One inquisitive

fellow turned a dead man over. He

saw a brass clip bearing the name

CANADA on the corpse’s shoulder

and exclaimed ‘These are Canadians!’...

Some of the Canadians were still

writhing on the ground, their tongues

hanging out....

Then we reached the front

line Canadian trenches. There were

no trenches left.

German gas supplies were exhausted

for the moment, but the battle went on in

a more conventional fashion. Before it

was over the Canadians had lost nearly

a third of their number — six thousand men

killed, wounded, gassed, or taken prisoner out

of an authorized strength of sixteen thousand,

five hundred. Compare that figure with the

three hundred and forty Canadians killed or

wounded in two years of South African

fighting only fifteen years earlier.War had

become unbelievably more destructive: and

the fact was not lost on either the men

in the field or on potential recruits and their

families back in Canada.

Major John McCrae, the medical officer

of a Canadian artillery brigade, knew

personally many of the men he tended

at Ypres and in the dying stages of the

battle — no pun intended — lost a very

close friend, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer,

who was killed by a German shell that

exploded at his feet.The next day, between

dealing with batches of wounded, Dr. McCrae

scribbled some verses on a handy scrap

of paper.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amidst the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved, and were loved, and

now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though

poppies grow

In Flanders fields.


Sir Richard Turner, VC. Brave men do not necessarily make good generals. [LAC PA 7941]

With his pear-shaped body (and an unmilitary hand in his pocket) Artbur Currie – here guiding Canadiansenators near the front in 1916 – never much looked like a soldier; but he was probably the finest generalCanada has yet produced. [LAC PA 237]

Sir Julian Byng. [LAC PA 1356]


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Second Ypres was merely a harbinger

of things to come. In the first weeks of

the war, before the trench stalemate had

been established, the Germans had lunged

forward and occupied most of Belgium and

much of north-eastern France.Then, as the

front settled down, they had given up small

amounts of territory when expedient, in

order to establish strong positions on the

most advantageous ground. Anxious to recover

both their territory and their reputations,

puzzled French generals (and, of course, their

British and Belgian peers) struggled to find

a way to prise the Germans out of those

positions, but topography and technology

almost always defeated them.Their

attempts to adjust their conventional

theories of war to current realities

were curiously inept.

The Germans had learned to dig deep

shelters, where their machine-gunners

could take cover while the artillery barrage

passed over them, and still pop up to lay

curtains of interlocking fire across the front

of the attacking infantry.They erected

impenetrable tangles of barbed wire, criss-

crossing No-man’s-land, that funnelled

their enemies into killing zones. But time

after time, following ever-heavier artillery

bombardments that chewed up the ground

over which their soldiers must advance

(and gave the Germans good warning of

the attack to come) the Entente generals

launched their men into infernos of fire.

Each time they failed, they modified

their tactics — but only very slightly and

always along the simplistic lines of more

men and more guns.The Germans reacted

by digging more and deeper shelters, often

with concrete cover, to protect themselves.

With greater numbers and more high-

explosives, communication and control was

becoming a major problem at every level

of command, for telephone wire took time to

lay and was easily cut by shellfire, while

radio communication, although technically

feasible, could not yet meet the practical

demands of the battlefield.

Wiser generals might have toyed with

the possibilities of dispersion, infiltration, or

surprise — or simply decided to stand on the

defensive until such time as some original

thinking or new technology could give them

a better chance of success. In England,

thoughtful men were now thinking in terms

of caterpillar-tracked, armed and armoured

motor vehicles — landships — to lead the

assault. But all the generals in France seemed

trapped in their own conventional thinking

and their men suffered as a result.

Canadian officers lacked the professional

background to challenge that thinking and,

obediently, the 1st Division was flung against

the enemy wire at Aubers Ridge in May 1915,

at Festubert that same month, and again at

Loos in September and October. Week by week,

the casualty lists grew longer.


British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (cattily, but accurately) described Sir Douglas Haig as “brilliant to the tops of his boots.” [DND DHist-4]

The 8th Battalion, CEF, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel (later Major-General) Louis Lipsett, marches past Stonehenge soon after its arrival in England in 1914. [LAC PA 117875]

Volunteers from the Yukon, leaving Dawson City. They never quite got to Berlin but they did help to win the war. [LAC PA 4984]


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A CANADIAN CORPS

A 2nd Canadian Division formed from

the Second Contingent arrived in France in

September 1915. Command of it was given

to a Canadian militia officer and Quebec

businessman, Major-General Richard Turner,

a Victoria Cross winner of the South African

War who had formerly commanded the

1st Division’s 3rd Brigade.The two divisions

were then combined to form a Canadian

Corps under British Lieutenant-General

E.A.H.Alderson who was promoted from

commanding the 1st Division.

Taking Alderson’s old place was another

Canadian militia officer who had been

leading the 1st Brigade.The ungainly,

pear-shaped body and lugubrious features

of Major-General Arthur Currie, a Vancouver

Island realtor who had fallen on hard

times before the war and been saved from

financial ruin by mobilization, were not

militarily inspiring but appearances were

to prove deceptive.

St. Eloi, in April 1916, when the untried

2nd Division was put in to hold a piece of

ground taken by the British but made quite

unrecognizable in the process by an enormously

liberal use of high explosive and too much

rain, was a disaster. A lack of aerial reconnaissance

and poor staff work left the Canadians

believing that they held some gigantic mine

craters that were actually still in German

hands. It took a week — an expensive, painful

week — to get the situation sorted out, and

afterwards Alderson asked Turner to join him

in putting in an adverse report on one of

the latter’s brigadiers.Turner refused and

Alderson then proposed replacing Turner

as well, only to have his request denied by

Haig who was unwilling to annoy Ottawa

by sacking two senior Canadians.

Instead,Alderson was the one to go,

‘kicked upstairs’ to be Inspector-General of

the Canadians in England, and command

of the Corps passed to the Honourable

Sir Julian Byng, eighth child of the Earl of

Stafford, a long-service British regular

who had commanded a British corps for

the past three months.‘Why am I sent

to the Canadians? I don’t know a Canadian,’

Byng responded to the congratulations

of a friend. ‘Why this stunt?... However,

there it is. I am ordered to these people

and will do my best.’ Byng’s appointment

roughly coincided with the arrival of the

3rd Division, commanded (because Sam

Hughes disliked and distrusted all

Permanent Force officers) by a Toronto

lawyer, Major-General Malcolm Mercer.

Alderson had been more acceptable to the

Canadians than many British officers might

have been, but Byng’s cheerful informality really

won them over. A senior medical officer,

Andrew McPhail, waiting for the new corps

commander to inspect his hospital, was surprised

to find that instead of arriving on horseback,

all pomp and ceremony, with mounted troopers


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to clear the way and an aide de camp and a

couple of orderlies trotting behind,‘he came

into the horse lines through a hedge, jumping

the ditch as unaffectedly as a farmer would

come on a neighbour’s place to look at his

crops... this is a soldier — large, strong, lithe,

with worn boots and frayed puttees.’

Soon the Canadians were happily referring

to themselves as ‘the Byng boys.’ Even Douglas

Haig — not the most perspicacious of men —

noticed the difference. At the end of July he wrote

to the king about a visit he had just made to the

Canadian Corps headquarters, where ‘I found a

greatly improved atmosphere there since he

[Byng] assumed command. Before there was

always a certain amount of jealousy and friction

between the several Canadian divisions.’

Byng’s ideas and reforms would take

time to develop, promulgate and implement,

however. At Mount Sorrel, in June 1916, he

drove the Canadians forward relentlessly, in the

now traditional fashion, as they took another

three thousand casualties in a week merely to

restore the status quo after a surprise German

attack that cost the 1st and newly-arrived

3rd Divisions six thousand officers and men,

including General Mercer who was reconnoitring

his front line at the time.The 4th CMRs, where

Mercer was when the blow fell, lost 89% of its

strength in four days.

Mercer’s command was given to

Major-General Louis Lipsett, formerly of the

1st Division’s 2nd Brigade, a British officer

who had been serving in Canada at the

outbreak of war and had volunteered

to stay with the CEF. The 4th Division, under

command of yet another militia officer,

Major-General David Watson (who owned

the Quebec Chronicle) would join the

Corps in August. Meanwhile, Ottawa was

settling on a (too low) figure of five thousand

replacements a month to maintain the sixty

thousand men in the front line that the Cabinet

concluded were needed to buy a place for

Canada in Imperial war councils.

At least another forty thousand were

needed to support them,organizing and delivering

supplies, policing rear areas, servicing base

hospitals, or clerking at divisional and corps

headquarters. More still were needed in

England and Canada to administer the training

and replacement pipelines. Altogether, Ottawa

thought, it might be necessary to muster half

a million men — and Borden pledged his

government to do just that on 1 January 1916.

It was the impact of that announcement that

led Jack Harris — a middle-aged man by the

standards of the day, with the welfare of a wife

and two children to consider — to the recruiting

booth on the last day of January. His wife never

spoke to him for two weeks after that!

A CANADIAN IDENTITY

In Canada a steady flow of recruits was

passing through the initial training depots,

as it had done since the outbreak of war.

These men came from every corner of the


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country and the sociological and cultural

impact of their coming together was quite

unprecedented in Canada’s brief history.

Although units — both battalions and

brigades — had initially been organized

on local and regional bases, military

expedience soon mixed them up both

as individuals and units. It is a point

worth expanding upon.

Canada had been cobbled together

for purely pragmatic — and often none too

moral — reasons.Those who confederated

in 1867 did so for political or economic

advantage, their common decision-making

bolstered by two things: British determination

to withdraw the garrisons from their

North American colonies, and a belief that,

in unity, there would be better prospects

of thwarting any possibility of American

annexation. Since 1841 (at the behest of

London) Quebec and Ontario had been

one province, and Canada East only favoured

confederation in order to escape the

tightening (and potentially suffocating)

embrace of Canada West. After Rupert’s

Land (subsequently the prairie provinces)

was purchased from the Hudson’s Bay

Company in 1869, British Columbia was

bribed with the promise of a railway

in 1871 and Prince Edward Island with

the payment of its debts in 1873.

Any sense of commonality or community

was noticeably lacking in this Dominion

of Canada. Five-and-a-half thousand kilometres

of largely empty space lay between Halifax

and Victoria.The Maritimes were cut off

from Quebec by the northern spur of an

Appalachian mountain range that reached

to the south shore of the St. Lawrence.

Quebec and Ontario were a geographic unity,

divided by language and culture more than

by the Ottawa river, but Ontario and the

prairie provinces were held well apart by

a wasteland of rock and water. British

Columbia, beyond the Rocky Mountains,

was a world unto itself.

Even by 1914, Canadians still had

little in common.There was only one

trans-continental railway, no trans-Canada

highway, no CBC or commercial radio,

no television. Newspapers were local and

regional.Aeroplanes were oddities,

automobiles still unreliable novelties (the

first Highway and Traffic Act had been

introduced in 1913) and travel expensive

in time and money, and mostly beyond

the financial reach of the lower-middle and

working classes.

The population of the Dominion was

only a little over seven million (more than

half of it in Ontario and Quebec) and there

were, overall, nearly as many foreign-born

as native-born.Three million immigrants had

arrived in the past fifteen years, more than a

million from the United Kingdom, nearly

a million from the United States, and most

of the rest from central and northern Europe.

Only four cities, Montreal,Toronto,Winnipeg


The 38th Battalion parading on Parliament Hill before sailing to Europe. This was the old Centre Block and the old Victoria Tower, both destroyed by fire in 1916. [LAC PA 4987]

Somewhere in this picture is Jack Harris, marching with the rest of the 169th Battalion to have an official photograph taken at Camp Niagara in June 1916. When the battalion was broken up for reinforcements, Jack went to the 4th CMR. [LAC PA 69817]

Nothing very elegant about practising to stick a bayonet in a man’s belly, but the Germans were supposed to be afraid of “cold steel.” [LAC PA 4965]


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and Vancouver, could claim more than

a hundred thousand inhabitants, and half

the population could be found in the

countryside.

The only national institutions, in any

sense of the word, were Parliament and the

executive arms of the Federal government,

the post office, and the Canadian Pacific

Railway. And of those, the first two were

certainly more politically elite than socially

populist! The social, cultural and intellectual

isolation that beset ordinary citizens is

hard for us to visualize today.

But between 1914 and 1916 tens of

thousands of men from every corner of the

country had been thrown together, wearing

the same kind of clothes, doing the same

kinds of things, and trying to avoid the less

pleasant kinds of bureaucratic adversity.

Before the war was over, six hundred thousand

of them would have worn the king’s uniform,

and more than four hundred and fifty thousand

(out of a male population of two-and-a-half

million between the ages of eighteen and

forty-five) would have served overseas, where

they were, one and all, labelled by their allies

as Canadians rather than New Brunswickers,

Quebeckers,Albertans or whatever, as they had

naturally categorized themselves in pre-war

days at home.

Crossing the Atlantic in 1915, in the

company of the 5th Canadian Mounted

Rifles, recruited in the Eastern Townships

of Quebec, Ken Duggan, an officer of

Toronto’s 4th CMRs, noted that the 5th

‘are an awfully nice lot of fellows.’ Cape

Breton miners argued the toss with Moose

Jaw teamsters; preppy Montreal students

and rowdy Vancouver longshoremen played

baseball against each other; hard-nosed

loggers from New Brunswick’s North

Shore got a little drunk (and perhaps

landed in jail) with prim and proper

shop assistants who had never before

known anything much beyond Toronto

the Good.

Ben Wagner, a country boy from Paisley,

in Ontario’s Bruce County, remembered

(in Daphne Read’s 1978 book, The Great

War and Canadian Society) apparently

with some surprise, how he ‘met people

not only from all over Canada ... but you

met them from all ranks of life, and they all

looked the same.’

We were in Witley Camp and right

alongside us was a battalion from

French Canada.We didn’t speak much

French and they didn’t speak much

English, but they were the finest

sports[men] you ever saw. Any kind

of spare time you had, they were

out with a baseball bat or something

like that. And they were a dandy

crowd, jovial, friendly. I got an entirely

different opinion of the French

Canadians because of being with

these people.You met people


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from Nova Scotia, or from Prince

Edward Island, clean through

to British Columbia.Very often you

didn’t take any notice of the fact

unless they happened to mention it.

And you never knew if the fella

alongside you was a Catholic or

a Protestant, or — which is almost

as serious — a Liberal or a Tory.

You just took him for granted,

and he took you for granted, and

that was all there was to it.

This was social engineering on the

grandest scale. No one expressed it in precisely

those terms, but that is exactly what it was.

VERDUN AND THE SOMME

Early in 1916, General Erich von

Falkenhayn, commander-in-chief of the

German armies in the west, sought to

break the strategic stalemate imposed by

trench warfare by deliberately initiating

a battle of attrition. He attacked the French

at a strategically sensitive point (the

ancient fortress city of Verdun, on the

river Meuse, which they could not afford

to relinquish for reasons of morale)

planning to either break through and

eventually take the road to Paris, or to

destroy his enemies’ will to continue the

fight by inflicting unbearable casualties

on them.The French reaction was

exemplified in the slogan, ‘Ils ne

passeront pas’ — ‘They shall not pass.’

The battle for Verdun raged for ten months,

each side losing close to half a million men

in an indecisive fight over a piece of ground no

more than twenty kilometres by five.The

French held on, however, losing some ground

but not Verdun itself; while on the wider

plains of eastern Europe a Russian general,

Alexei Brusilov, launched a successful

counter — offensive against the Austrians

and Germans along a five hundred — kilometre

front.Von Falkenhayn had miscalculated

and now, east and west, the Germans found

their resources stretched to the limit.

Anxious to seize the moment but

unable to do so alone, Général Joseph

Joffre, the French commander-in-chief,

demanded that the British join him in putting

the kind of pressure on the enemy that

von Falkenhayn was still trying to exercise

at Verdun. For political reasons, the British

had to be seen to do a fair share of fighting

(their front had been relatively quiet since

the Battle of Loos) and Sir Douglas Haig had

little choice but to agree.The chosen

battlefield — reluctantly accepted by Haig,

who would have preferred an attack in

Flanders to pin the Germans against the

Channel shore — lay at the junction between

the French and British armies, along the

Somme river.

The prevailing German concept of

defence was still a linear one — three lines

of trenches, front, support, and reserve,

dug only a few hundred metres apart, with


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two-thirds of each front-line division

manning them and the other third held

close at hand. Every rifleman in a front-line

regiment was to be found within

five hundred metres of No-man’s-land,

even though the ever-increasing weight

of Entente artillery fire meant that the

casualty rates imposed by such a forward

defence were coming to match those

of their attackers.

British attack doctrine called for the

infantry who made the actual assault to

depend upon ‘the artillery solely, with

very slight support from selected snipers

and Company sharpshooters’ until the

bayonet could be ‘the decisive factor.’ Men

with only rudimentary training — and

by now British, French and Canadians

alike were undertrained* — were most

easily organized in straight lines, so

commanders attached much importance

to the need to maintain such lines,

with men about two metres apart and

some slight allowance for the difficulties

of advancing over broken ground.

‘In many instances experience has

shown that to capture a hostile trench

a single line of men has usually failed,’

announced Haig’s staff, in a curiously

mathematical approach to tactics.

‘Two lines have generally failed but

sometimes succeeded, three lines

have generally succeeded but sometimes

failed, and four or more lines have

generally succeeded.’

This preference for linear advances

was heavily reinforced by the need

for the infantry to ‘lean on the barrage’

as they went forward, so that they

would be on top of the enemy’s trenches

before he could surface and bring

those machine-guns into action. Only

by doing that could they hope to

arrive with enough men left to defeat

him in hand-to-hand (or, more often,

grenade-to-grenade) fighting, and

a more-or-less matching straight line

of artillery fire was essential in order

to minimize the danger of men

being hit by their own side’s shrapnel.

And, indeed, that kind of straight line

barrage was what the gunners were

best equipped and trained to deliver.

Straight lines were the watchword.

So, on 1 July 1916, began another

holocaust, preceded by seven days of

drumfire from fifteen hundred Entente guns,

intended primarily to cut gaps in the

German wire and prevent their working

parties from re-establishing it by night.

It was easy, with shrapnel and high

explosive, to make the ground untenable

for repair parties — harder to cut the

wire to any significant extent. Sharp slivers

* Of the 50,000 Canadians sent to France between April 1915 and October 1916, some 20,000 were considered by their own commanders to be only partially trained.


Aerial photography meant that the enemy could not hide the shape and extent of his defences. A helpful intelligence officer has plotted dug-outs,wire (and gaps in it) and a buried cable in this photograph of German positions near Vimy. Note how the first line of wire zig-zags, and how thetrenches are dug so that their defenderscannot be subjected to enfilading fire from a flank. [LAC C 55268]

Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg, left, with General Ludendorff. [DND DHist-3]

One of the tanks supporting the Canadianattack at Flers-Courcelette. [LAC PA 1012].


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of red-hot metal from shells time-fused to

explode just above the ground would cut wire

only if the shell exploded within it at exactly the

right moment. If the explosion came a hundredth

of a second too soon, then the fragments would

be harmlessly dispersed in the air; if it came too

late, they would be buried in the mud.

All too often the wire remained intact.

Then, at zero hour, the barrage began

to creep across the German trenches, lifting

a hundred metres every two minutes.

Close behind it, the over-laden ‘Poor Bloody

Infantry’ clambered out of their trenches

and began to trudge forward through the

mud, over the shell-torn ground, searching

for the few gaps in the wire.

The Germans, tense in their trenches and

dug-outs until the barrage had passed over them,

promptly manned their fire steps to slaughter

the men struggling with that abominable wire.

‘Has anyone seen the corporal? I know where

he is...’ sang the ironic survivors of each fruitless

attack, once the slaughter was done for the

moment and they were settled in the warmth

and joviality of a canteen or estaminet somewhere

behind the lines.

Has anyone here seen the corporal?

I know where he is —

He’s hanging on the old barbed wire.

How do you know? I saw him.

I saw him, I saw him,

Hanging on the old barbed wire.

The Germans were no better at

economizing in lives.While Joffre and Haig

demanded that their men attack again

and again, von Falkenhayn was ordering

that every metre of Somme mud must

be held by his, no matter what the cost.

Most assaults petered out with the

attackers decimated by shrapnel and

machine-guns and their opponents equally

diminished by high explosive and gas,

for the Entente armies were now using gas,

too. (Phosgene, a nastier kind, was now

the gas of choice, but mustard gas, the

nastiest of all, would not be used until the

summer of 1917.)

Occasionally, at enormous cost, the attackers

did reach and take an enemy trench in a frenzy of

close-quarter fighting — only to face desperate

counter-attacks which were sometimes repulsed,

but more often not. Since the ground behind

them — the old No-man’s-land — was a trackless

morass of mud and water from the artillery fire

of both sides, and usually still under enemy fire, it

was extremely difficult to get enough ammunition

and grenades forward to hold the new line.

The Newfoundland Regiment, serving

in a British division, was there on the

notorious “First Day on the Somme”, when

virtually everyone attacked along a

forty-kilometre front — a third of it French —

and the British Third and Fourth Armies

lost more than fifty-seven thousand men.

Over seven hundred of them were

Newfies, killed and wounded in thirty


A dressing station near the front, September 1916. Medicine had made startling advances since the South African War, and even without antibiotic drugs these men stood a better chance of surviving their wounds than soldiers from any previous war. [LAC PA 909]

No-man’s-land, with shells bursting in the distance. [LAC PA 786]

German prisoners captured on the Somme marching to the rear under a mounted escort. Why those in front should wish to hide their faces from the camera is a mystery. [LAC PA 962]


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terrible minutes at Beaumont Hamel.

It was the good fortune of the Canadian

battalions, however, that they all missed

the early stages of the battle.

THE CANADIAN CORPS

ON THE SOMME

The Canadian Corps, still three

divisions strong, remained in the

Ypres Salient — its role ‘stationary yet

aggressive’ — through the early stages

of the battle. During the summer the

last of its Canadian-designed and built

Ross rifles (one of Sam Hughes’ pet

projects) which had proved quite unable

to withstand the rigours of field service,

were withdrawn and replaced with

British Lee-Enfields.

Meanwhile the British and French were

incurring nearly two hundred thousand

and more than seventy thousand casualties

respectively by the end of August, while

their opponents lost an estimated

two hundred thousand. All this so that the

Entente could re-occupy a stretch of

blood-soaked mud along both banks

of the Somme river averaging less than

a kilometre in depth.

Von Falkenhayn was replaced.

Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg,

who had been commander-in-chief in

the East and would soon be, in effect, the

Supreme Commander of all the armies

of the Central Powers, now took over.With

him, as his chief of staff, came Generalleutnant

Erich Ludendorff, a man both willing and

anxious to find an answer to the tactical riddles

of trench warfare.

On the Entente side, despite a growing

groundswell of discontent at the political

level, the British and French remained

committed to their current commanders.

Although Joffre would be sacked at the

turn of the year, Haig — a personal friend

of King George V — would hold his

appointment to the very end of the war.

His earlier thrusts by British and

Australian troops having petered out,

Haig decided in mid-August to launch

another major offensive in mid-September

using ‘fresh forces and all available

resources.’ Sir Henry Rawlinson, one of

the more progressive British generals

(which is still not saying much in his favour)

proposed a three-stage attack mounted

on three successive moonlight nights. His

superior rejected that idea, preferring

to gamble on a single blow delivered in

the traditional way.With one minor

deviation — to be recounted in a

moment — artillery would conquer

and infantry would occupy.

Part of the ‘fresh forces’ would

be Canadian.The weight of the attack

would lie with Rawlinson’s Fourth

Army, while Sir Hubert Gough’s Reserve


The strain of battle is sharply etched on the face of these Canadian soldiers leaving the front November 1916. [LAC PA 832]

These Canadians were very happy indeed, however. They were leaving the Somme. [DND O-827]


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Army, including the Canadian Corps,

would push forward to protect

Rawlinson’s flank.The Canadians

marched south from Ypres, and the

1st Divison took over a relatively

quiet corps-sized sector of the Somme

front while the 2nd and 3rd Divisions

prepared for the coming battle.The

4th Division was busy training, bringing

its units up to scratch far behind

the front.

From the beginning, the auguries

were bad. Even while tussling (together

with an Australian brigade) for control

of one measly little section of crumbling

trench and holding it against the inevitable

counter-attacks, the 1st Division’s

3rd Brigade incurred a thousand casualties

in a week.And on 8 September, while

the 2nd Brigade was in the process of

taking over the front, the Germans skilfully

regained an entirely obliterated trench.

On 15 September the 2nd and

3rd Divisions participated in the grand

assault, in which tanks were used in war

for the first time. Manned by British Army

crews, they gave the Germans a nasty

shock and did much for British morale.

‘A tank is walking up the High Street

of Flers with the British Army cheering

behind,’ reported one gleeful observer.

On the German side, their use was reported

as ‘not war but bloody butchery’ according

to a Canadian Corps intelligence summary.

But they were not, as yet, a decisive

arm.They could break down wire —

indeed, they did so.They were impervious

to rifle and machine-gun fire, and all

but direct hits from heavier guns, while

their own cannon and machine-guns

were wreaking havoc on the enemy;

but they were slow and unreliable

and, despite their caterpillar tracks,

the mud was often too much for them.

On better ground they might have

done better, and their premature introduction

on the Somme was an indication of the

generals’ desperate desire to find a quick

solution to the tactical dilemma that

faced them.Altogether, forty-nine tanks were

assigned to the attack out of the sixty then

in France, but only thirty-two managed to

reach their start lines and only ten lasted

long enough to help the infantry on to their

objectives. Eight tanks were allotted to the

Canadians. Four got stuck in the mud, one was

wrecked by a shell, one broke down, one

turned back just before reaching its objective,

and one arrived on the enemy’s third trench

line, where it did considerable physical damage

before leaving the infantry to hold their gains.

The 2nd Division was on the outskirts of

Courcelette — little more than mounds of

rubble — in a matter of hours, but it took

another two days to take and secure the place.

The Van Doos repulsed fourteen counter-

attacks — seven in the first night.‘If hell is as

bad as what I have seen at Courcelette,’ their


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commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel T.L.

Tremblay, wrote in his diary,‘I would not wish

my worst enemy to go there.’

Just as the Germans had run out

of gas at Ypres in 1915, the British

had now run out of tanks, at least for

the time being.The 1st Division was

brought up on the 2nd’s left, to drive

another wedge into the German line

over the almost imperceptible Thiepval

Ridge.The Zollern Graben, or Trench,

Hessian Trench, and Regina Trench with

its branching Kenora Trench — codenames

for Canadian objectives — became

legendary memories among the survivors

of those who took them; and then lost

them again!

Currie told Odlum (who was now

commanding the 11th Brigade) that,‘I saw

one of the wounded wearing a German

officer’s helmet.’

He had been shot through

the nose but he didn’t mind

a little thing like that. The

officer [had] turned to run

and he let him have about

four inches of steel in the

kidney and then appropriated

the helmet.

The strength of the 3rd Divison fell

to three-and-a-half thousand, out of an

establishment of twelve thousand; the

1st Division’s 3rd Brigade alone lost

three thousand men; and one battalion

that received three hundred and fifty

replacements in a month could still only

muster one hundred and fifty against

an establishment of eight hundred at the

end of that time. Understandably, morale

sagged among the less imperturbable and

discipline began to break down.‘Battle

stops’ had to be introduced, manned by

military policemen with orders to arrest

anyone trying to leave the battlefield unless

they had orders to do so or were wounded.

But most men bottled up their

fears and fought long and hard for

each square metre of Somme mud.

A worried Byng ordered an inquiry

into the subsequent loss of Regina

Trench, after part of it had been taken

on October 8, 1916.Two days later

Arthur Currie explained that he had

‘personally conducted a further

investigation, interviewing all surviving

unwounded officers ... as well as a

great many N[on] C[ommissioned]

O[fficer]s and men.’

I found many NCOs who

said they had been shown

a map, yet they could not

recognize mine.Maps are

very useful things, yet this

Battalion attempted to do

too much from the map. If

their objectives had been


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laid out on the ground

and maps examined and

explained in conjunction

with these Practice Trenches,

the men would have advanced

to the attack with a much

clearer idea of their task....

Lieut. Simmie, the [4th] Battalion

Bombing Officer, had come

forward, contrary to orders, and ...

had a continuous fight for

hours....He kept calling for bombs

[i.e., hand grenades] continuously....

Simmie fought his block until

his bombs gave out. He was

twice wounded and took up the

fight with a rifle....All the officers

of C Company were wounded

before the retirement.

C Company attacked about

100 strong and had 68 casualties.

D Company, the left assaulting

company, suffered considerably ...

encountering wire on high

stakes about 15 yards wide. Out

of 24 men in one Platoon, only

7 got into the REGINA.They came

across Germans in old Gun Pits

in front of the Trench, taking

10 prisoners there and killing

and wounding about 10 more....

A Company, 3rd Battalion,

put in a block in REGINA near

Below [Trench] and resisted as

long as bombs held out. Lieut.

Chatterton headed 2 unsuccessful

bayonet attacks....

I went carefully into the

number of bombs taken over.

The 3rd Battalion carried

across 3,800 bombs and 480 more

were sent over about 8.30 a.m.

There was a lull then and 20 men

took over 24 each. 12 of these

Carriers became casualties coming

back. 8 other men took over

30 each but 5 were killed.When

Carriers suffer a loss of 60%

of their numbers I think one can

say the attempt to replenish the

bomb supply was determined.

...there is evidence that men

used their rifles as clubs, they

did not give up as long as bombs

were available, and those in

the Support REGINA Trench until

they were nearly cut off. 15 officers

went over in the attack, 4 were

killed while 8 were wounded, and

all these before the Battalion

was driven back.

I cannot excuse the Battalion for

the lack of clearness in its Operation

Orders, for the fact that it never

rehearsed its task, nor gave sufficient

explanation to the men. ...yet had


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none of these things occurred, the

wire would still have been uncut

and the supply of bombs would

have run out just as soon.

All the lessons to be learned

from these operations, all the

points, and they are many, which

can be improved, all the things

left undone, done badly, or which

might have been done better,

I shall take up not only with

the 3rd and 4th Battalions, but

with all the Battalions of this

Division.

Slowly, painfully, the 2nd Division

pushed forward another kilometre, on to

the Ancre Heights. In the British divisions,

in each successive attack the unfortunate

first wave was destined for the ultimate

objective, with the others being expected to

‘mop-up’ behind them.There was no concept

of leap-frogging companies or battalions or

brigades through each other; and if by some

gallant effort the objective was reached, then

all the survivors were expected to consolidate

on the new position and hold it until reliefs

could be brought up.This was standard doctrine,

and the Canadians (excepting Sam Hughes,

who was, of course, busy politicking in

Ottawa!) still had an unhealthy respect for

people they believed to be genuine professionals.

‘As a subordinate commander in a large army,’

thrust into someone else’s battle on short notice,

Byng could do little to influence events. As

his biographer has observed,‘assigned a very

narrow front, he had no choice but to assault

directly the objectives he was given.’

Even the formation in which

his infantry advanced was

imposed (from above], as was

the pattern and scale of his artillery

fire.He could but allot objectives

to his divisional commanders,

coordinate their plans and spur

them on....

Outwardly he remained the

confident, cheerful, hard-driving

commander. The only obvious

sign of his disquiet was the amount

of time he spent in reflection.

During the Somme campaign

Canadian Corps headquarters

was at Contay, where, in the

grounds of the old château, Byng

might often be seen bare-headed,

pacing back and forth, absorbed

in thought ....

On 10 October, the 4th Division arrived

from the Ypres Salient, where it had been

apprenticing for the past two months.The rest

of the Corps (except for its artillery which

was still needed) was withdrawn into reserve,

and the 4th put temporarily under the

command of a British corps. In what proved

to be the last Canadian action on the Somme,

these fresh, un-battle-wearied Canadians

finally re-captured Regina Trench and pushed


past it another five hundred metres to Desire

Trench — bitterly contested lines which

were virtually indistinguishable from the

surrounding mud when they finally fell

and the onset of winter rains compelled the

generals to bring their campaign to a stop

on 18 November.

When the battle ended the British had

lost four hundred and twenty thousand men,

the French about two hundred thousand,

the Germans about the same as the British

and French combined. Canadian casualties

numbered twenty-four thousand, 31% of those

engaged.‘The three main objectives with

which we had commenced our offensive

in July had already been achieved,’ wrote

Sir Douglas Haig in his despatch.‘...Verdun

had been relieved; the main German

forces had been held on the Western

Front; and the enemy’s strength had

been very considerably worn down.

Any one of these three results is in

itself sufficient to justify the Somme battle.’

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CHAPTER II


CHAPTER II

THE PATH TO VIMY RIDGE

When the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian

Divisions left the Somme in mid-October 1916,

all their artillery remained with the 4th Division

to carry on the fight for another month: and the

day before the 4th was finally withdrawn one

of the 1st Division’s gunners still with it, G.L.

Magann, noted in his diary that,‘There is news

that we may soon be relieved and rejoin our

division on the Vimy Ridge, near Bethune.This

would be a very decent place to spend the

winter, if the winter is going to be quiet like

last winter.’

The Canadians would spend the winter

below Vimy Ridge, not on it, but operationally

it would be a quiet time, with the Corps

holding a sixteen-kilometre stretch of front

while each division in turn came out of

the line for rest, recuperation and training.

Typically, a rifleman would spend four

or five days standing guard — and scratching

himself! — in the interminable mud and

filth of the front line, with only cold or

lukewarm food to share with the ubiquitous

rats and a nook in the trench wall to doze

in.Then four or five days more in support (two

warm meals, and an earthen dug-out with

corrugated iron roof if he was lucky), followed

by a week to ten days in battalion reserve,

with regular meals and perhaps a half-decent

shanty of wood and iron sheeting to keep

out the rain.

In brigade reserve the whole battalion

would be pulled back beyond field artillery

range to eat and sleep in damaged and

deserted farmsteads or the cellars of wrecked

and ruined villages.Working parties, carrying

supplies forward or repairing reserve trenches

each night, kept the soldier busy (and tired)

but there was the chance of a bath and an

opportunity to exchange his dirty shirt

and underpants for clean ones.There would

still be ‘chats’, or lice, in the seams of his

uniform, and many off-duty hours were spent

‘chatting’ and gossiping with his mates.

When the whole division passed into

reserve, beyond reach of the enemy’s heaviest

guns, there might even be the opportunity

to get deloused.There were drill parades and

fatigues, as well as weapon training, but his

evenings and nights would be largely his own

and he could rely upon two hot meals a day

and might even find himself really clean, with

nothing to scratch, for the moment.

HIRINGS AND FIRINGS

The Somme fighting had revealed much

that needed to be done to make the Corps

a more efficient fighting machine, and from

both organizational and training perspectives

the winter would be anything but quiet. One

of the problems that had beset the Canadians

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throughout the first year of their corps’

existence had been the wildly uneven

calibre of its officers. Sam Hughes, the manic

Minister of Militia, was convinced that

amateurs like himself made better fighting

soldiers than professionals and that he,

personally, was uniquely qualified to organize

and supervise Canada’s war efforts.

He had frequently used that conviction,

in his rough-and-tumble, hard-driving way,

to justify interference in military matters

which were properly outside the minister’s

sphere of authority. It had certainly been

his business, for example, to appoint the initial

commanders of the CEF, and some of his

protégés, like Arthur Currie and Victor Odlum,

were proving more than competent at their

new trade, although many others were not;

subsequent appointments and promotions

should have been left to the appropriate

commanders, however, particularly where

men’s lives were likely to be directly at

stake, as was the case in France.

Instead, Hughes had continually

interfered on the basis of his own, often

bizarre, political whims and military

fancies.‘I found it difficult at first, as politics

seemed to play such a part,’ recalled

Major-General Sir Charles Harington, the

mild-mannered Briton appointed to be

Alderson’s chief of staff in the embryonic

Canadian Corps.‘Sir Sam Hughes sent

instructions from Canada as regards the

Command of Brigades, etc.’

He sent instructions about virtually

everything else as well, and he lacked all

appreciation for, or understanding of, the

need for bureaucratic order. His duplication

of appointments, made on no comprehensible

basis in the first place, created profound

jealousies within the Overseas Forces and

brought confusion and crisis in their wake.

And his belief in himself and his own exquisite

judgement was only exaggerated by the

award (on Borden’s recommendation) of

a knighthood and his subsequent promotion

(through his own political manipulations)

to an honorary lieutenant-generalcy by the

British in October 1916.

As Sir Sam he got worse, not better. In

a last attempt to bring order out of chaos, the

Prime Minister sought to set up an Overseas

Ministry in London headed by a man, other than

Hughes, holding Cabinet rank and directly

responsible to the Cabinet in Ottawa. Hughes,

busily inspecting overseas camps at the time

(and, at the age of sixty-three, condescending

to teach a little unarmed combat on the side)

totally ignored Borden’s wishes and set up his

own Sub-Militia Council, filled with his own

toadies, that would report only to him as

Minister of Militia.

Borden was most reluctant to dismiss him

out of hand, since he had powerful supporters

in the Conservative party and was a stalwart

defender of the CEF’s distinct Canadian status.

However, while the Canadian Corps was

fighting its way into (and out of) Regina Trench

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Lunchtime in support, on one of those raredays when the sun was shining and all seemedwell in a soldier’s world. [LAC PA 166]

The bleak junction of Regina and Kenora trenches, where 4th Canadian Division fought the last of the Somme battles. The way in which trenches were dug, with unending crenellations, so that if the enemy broke into one he would have no field of fire along it, can be seen very clearly in this photograph. [LAC C14151]

“After battle, sleep is best; afternoise, tranquillity.” – WilliamMorris. [DND DHist-6]

These ruined gun positions withtheir corrugated iron roofs couldstill provide acceptable quartersfor troops in immediate reserve.[LAC PA 94]


and on to the Ancre Heights, an angry

exchange of cables and letters criss-crossed

the Atlantic.‘You seem actuated by a desire

and even an intention to administer your

Department as if it were a separate and

distinct Government in itself,’ Borden told

his recalcitrant minister, summoning up

the political courage to fire him on

9 November 1916.

In Ottawa there was both joy and anger.

In France, among the fighting men, there was

only joy.‘There is a new contentment among

us all,’ wrote Lieutenant John Creelman, on

hearing the news.

We walk with sprightlier step....

The mad mullah of Canada has been

deposed. The Canadian Baron

Munchausen will be to less effect....

The greatest soldier since Napoleon

has gone to his gassy Elba and

the greatest block to the successful

termination of the war has been

removed. Joy, oh Joy! I do not like

to kick a man when he is down

but I am willing to break nine toes

in kicking Sam in the stomach

or in the face or anywhere else.

Another who was no doubt filled with

joy was that ambitious (and conventional)

bureaucrat, Sir George Perley, Canada’s high

commissioner in London, now appointed

to Cabinet rank as head of the new Overseas

Ministry of Canada.

On the greater stage of Entente affairs

‘Papa’ Joffre was gone, his place taken

by Général Robert Nivelle, whose counter-

attacks at Verdun had enjoyed some brief

success in the late fall.The meretricious

Nivelle, a fluent English speaker, was a much

more appealing figure to politicians of

similar stripe than the stolid, unilingual Joffre.

In Britain,Asquith’s coalition government

fell in December, to be replaced by an

administration led by his former Minister

of Munitions, David Lloyd George, another

fluent English speaker.

The first step in improving the combat

capability of the Canadian Corps had become

possible with Borden’s dismissal of Hughes.

Without reference to either Ottawa or London,

Byng could now hire and fire: and between

15 October 1916 and 1 April 1917 one

divisional commander (Turner), two brigade

commanders and fifteen battalion commanders,

were promoted, transferred, or posted out

of the Corps.

Those who were promoted had all

shown their worth on the Somme,

and other officers who had done well

took the places of those who were

posted out. Overall,Turner had proved

to be mediocre rather than bad; but

with a Canadian military commander now

urgently needed in England he was the

obvious choice as the senior major-general

overseas and Byng was glad to see

him go.The 2nd Division was given to

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“The greatest soldier since Napoleon”? Sam Hughes interrupts bayonet training to offer a pointer on unarmed combat. [LAC PA 596]

A battalion cook-house. [LAC PA 20]

It is hard to believe that, on merit, two of the twelve Canadian infantry brigades (and later a division) deserved to be commanded by Hughes’s. But Sir Sam appointed his son, Garnet, to command of the embryonic5 th Division and his younger brother, William St Pierre Hughes, to a brigade. [LAC PA 698]

At least Sam Hughes looked the part. Sir GeorgePerley, appointed Minister of the Overseas MilitaryForces of Canada in November 1916, cuts aridiculous battlefield figure while visiting theCanadian Corps. [LAC PA 1770]


Major-General H.E. Burstall, a Permanent

Force officer who had been commanding

the Corps artillery, while a distinguished

Boer War veteran, long-time journalist, (and

another of Hughes’ better choices)

Brigadier-General E.W.B. Morrison, was

promoted to take Burstall’s place.

TRAINING THE CORPS

Nivelle’s late successes at Verdun had

greatly impressed Haig, and, at his bidding,

in January 1917 a number of senior

officers were despatched to the scene

in order to discover what the French

had done differently. Byng nominated

Currie to represent the Canadian

Corps, and ‘Old Guts and Gaiters’ (as

his men ribaldly labelled him) returned

from Verdun with some interesting

observations and suggestions.

‘Every man saw the ground over which

he would have to attack; his objective

was pointed out to him, as well as the places

where he might expect resistance and

check.’ Then, he reported, the assault troops

were withdrawn from the front line and

second-rate formations were brought in to

do the necessary pre-attack manual labour.

Those who were to attack should come fresh

to the slaughter.

Currie noted particularly that the objectives

assigned to the attackers by the French were

‘a line of tactical points’, or militarily significant

natural features of the ground such as a ridge,

stream or knoll. Among the British and

Canadians, he recalled, too often ‘our objectives

are hostile German trenches,’ which were

likely to have been rendered unrecognizable

by the accompanying bombardment.

The need for better platoon and company

training, he added, was ‘the greatest lesson

I have learned from my visit to Verdun.’

The Divisions selected for the

attack were trained especially

for the work they had to do.The

training was carried out on

ground as similar to the area

over which they would have

to attack as it was possible to

find. All the training consisted

of platoon and company training.

Byng promptly started a program to

implement Currie’s proposals.The Canadians

were not alone, or even necessarily the

leaders, in this reformation, however. It was

occurring more or less simultaneously

throughout much of the British Expeditionary

Force, where there was a general recognition

that another Pyrrhic victory like the last one

might well destroy the army.

But British divisions were continually

being shuffled about within their various

corps formations for reasons of immediate

military convenience; and that was a habit

they could not, or would not, break, so that

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Major-General Henry Burstall, a Quebec-born Permanent Force gunner who succeeded General Turner in command of the 2nd Division in December 1916, and retained that command until the end of the war. [LAC PA 2276]

Canadian Corps staff officers being presented to the King: left to right, Burstall,Byng, King George V, Farmar, Lindsey,Currie (A.C., not A.W.), Radcliffe, Foster,Brooke, Rennie, Ketchen, Thacker, Webber, Frith, Kearsley, Hill, Elmsley,Hayter, MacBrien. The fact that theCanadian Corps was maintained as a distinct national formation meant that these officers spent many months working together – and became an efficient team as a result. [LAC PA 582]

A repair car in the divisional ammunition park. Notice the chain-operated transmission and solid-tired wheels. [LAC PA 16]

Armourers repairing rifles and machine-gunsin a mobile workshop conveniently situatedbeside the light railway leading to the front.[LAC PA 1272]


there was no standardization or continuity

in their armies, above the divisional level.

The four Canadian divisions, on the other

hand, would be (with only very rare and

brief exceptions) held together in the one

Corps for the remainder of the war: and

other things being equal, a corps consisting

of divisions trained by different criteria to

differing standards was not likely to do as

well in battle as one with divisions boasting

a common interpretation of doctrine and

similar standards of training.

Moreover, because the Canadians were

kept together, their divisional and corps

staffs came to know each others’ strengths

and weaknesses very well, and that made

for better, more effective and more error-free

performance all around.*

Meanwhile, the Corps looked at the

way in which its fighting strength was arrayed.

In two years of trench warfare some curious

shifts had occurred in the internal establishment

of the British (and Canadian) infantry battalion,

which, of necessity, now carried almost

exclusively the human weight of battle.Whereas

the pre-war battalion, organized to fight

‘colonial’ wars on a company basis, had been

composed almost entirely of riflemen with

just a sprinkling of machine-gunners, pioneers

and signallers, by the time of the Somme

battles nearly half of the battalion’s manpower

was composed of specialists of one kind or

another — bombers, scouts, snipers, signallers,

machine-gunners, etc.

Many of these men were organized

in specialist companies or platoons, with

their own specialist officers — and that

had allowed the traditional British emphasis

on hierarchy and ‘status’ to come into play.

Internal rivalries had arisen, and a sort of

class-consciousness come to exist, in which

the ordinary riflemen were seen (by the

specialists) as the lowest of the low. Without

any deliberate intent, that essential willing

and close co-operation between specialist and

rifleman had become the exception rather

than the rule.

One of the lessons of the Somme had

been that the largest group that could be

controlled effectively by one man in the

all-pervading fog of battle was a platoon-sized

one — thirty-five to forty men — consisting

of four rifle sections. Sometimes a thoughtful

battalion or company commander might

add to a particular platoon one of the twelve

Lewis guns which came under their control,

but more often than not all the specialists

were held back.Then an infantry platoon

would have virtually none of the weaponry,

and consequent tactical flexibility, needed

to meet the peculiarities of trench fighting.

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* The Australians, who also had a corps in France by thistime, were much less ‘nationalistic’ than the Canadians.They frequently permitted their divisions to be attachedto other formations, sometimes for prolonged periods,and consequently suffered from the same variations indivisional standards as the British; with a similar lack ofco-ordination between their own corps and divisionalstaffs.They fought as well as the Canadians, however.


Not a field gun, but a field kitchen with the stovepipe lowered for towing. [LAC PA 888]

Horse-drawn field kitchens, witb stove-pipesraised, ready for business. [LAC PA 9]

A heavy howitzer on counter-battery work. [LAC PA 697]

Counter-battery fire could be corrected by aerialobservation from aircraft (by radio) or tetheredballoons (by telephone). A “balloonatic”checks histelephone before ascending. [LAC PA 2057]


The subaltern commanding it would often

find his little group isolated — as had happened

more than once at Regina Trench — and,

with little prospect of specialist reinforcements

to deal with the exigencies of the situation,

would have to withdraw at best, or go down

fighting at worst.

To overcome this problem, on

9 December 1916 the Canadian Corps

led the way (six weeks in advance of a

comparable directive from Haig’s General

Headquarters) in implementing a new

battalion organization which made the

platoon into a more balanced combat

entity. Henceforth, each platoon would

consist of rifle, rifle-grenade, bombing

and Lewis gun sections, and so become

a tactical unit capable of taking or

holding ground with its own resources

to a previously unparalleled extent.

What was the best way to close with

the enemy? Clearly, there was no future

in the straight-as-possible, evenly-spaced lines,

five or ten metres apart, that had proved

so vulnerable on the Somme. Instead, the

leading companies of a battalion would

advance in two much rougher lines of

uncertain spacing (dependent upon the

ground and the nature of the opposition),

grouped by platoons, with the lines

fifteen to twenty metres apart, and a third

line, twice that distance behind and even

looser in formation, assigned to mop-up any

enemy trapped in bunkers or dug-outs.

Fifty to a hundred metres behind the third

line would come the ‘follow up’ battalions,

still grouped by platoons but with their sections

usually deployed in a diamond-shaped

formation that, while less efficient in bringing

their own firepower to bear, reduced the

effectiveness of enemy machine-gun and

artillery fire.That also enabled the young

subalterns commanding the platoons to

exercise better control over their men.

Then there was the question of heavy

machine-guns, whose tactical importance

seemed to increase with every engagement.

Before the war, a British division had

carried twenty-four such guns (two per

battalion) on its strength, but each of

the four divisions of the Canadian Corps

now had sixty-four. Machine-gun tactics,

however, had not kept pace with numbers.

Ever since their introduction in the 1880s,

they had been generally viewed as direct-fire,

defensive weapons (which was really all that

the light machine-gun was useful for), and that

was still the common perception among

soldiers.

Little or no consideration had been

given to the potential for offensive warfare

inherent in the heavier types. One officer

who had thought about it was a Frenchman

in the Canadian Corps (he had been an

engineering entrepreneur in Calgary before

the war) named Raymond Brutinel. Appointed

to command the four-battery 1st Canadian

Motor Machine-Gun Brigade, a small mechanized

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A two-seater BE2C, widely used by the corps squadrons of the Royal Flying Corps for ground liaison duties on the Western Front in 1916 and early 1917. [DND HC 5017]

Raymond Collishaw and Arthur Whealy, Canadian fighter pilots of the Royal Naval Air Service who joined 22 (Army) Wing on the Western Front in February 1917. Both survived the war, Collishaw with sixty victories and Whealy with twenty-seven. [DND O-2855]

The “Red Baron”, Manfred von Richthofen (with white scarf). When he was killed, on 21 April 1918, von Richthofen had been credited with eighty aerial victories. [DND AH 165]

Thélus, the objective of the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade on 9 April 1917, photographed from the air two weeks earlier. [LAC C55267]


force of heavy machine-guns wielding

relatively immense firepower, Brutinel had

been experimenting with the idea of

indirect barrage fire in the attack — curtains

of bullets which would compel front-line

defenders to keep their heads down until

the last minute. Aimed at areas, or firing on

fixed lines, they could also be used to harass

the enemy by night.

He was now promoted to the rank

of lieutenant-colonel and appointed Corps

Machine-Gun Officer to co-ordinate

their use and develop a uniform tactical

doctrine. By the beginning of March, he

had organized a harassing fire plan to

supplement that of the artillery, targeting

his weapons on damaged wire entanglements

(to restrict repairs by night), communication

trenches, tramways and dumps to hinder

re-supply, and the enemy’s closer field artillery

batteries. Up to sixty-four guns were

continuously employed by day and night,

and prisoners reported that their fire

was having a pronounced effect on German

morale.

In the artillery, the introduction of the

‘instantaneous’ 106 fuze meant that instead

of exploding in the air or ground shells

would now blow up in the wire.With that

problem more or less solved, the gunners

began to pay more attention to the destruction

of enemy artillery, or counter-battery fire. A

young militia soldier-scientist from McGill

University, Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew

McNaughton, had been appointed

Counter-Battery Staff Officer at Corps

headquarters at the end of January

and, like Currie, he was sent off to see

how the French did it. He came back

much less impressed with them than Currie

had been. At their headquarters, he found,

‘you had the most wonderful dissertation on

the co-ordination of artillery fire and how

they had won the last battle.’

Then you’d get out in the field

and you’d find that the French,

just as we found them always,

were a damned sloppy outfit as

far as their artillery was concerned.

Their stuff was tied together with

binder twine and string and

hay wire.They’d put on bursts

of fire, but the idea of accuracy

[essential to counter-battery

work] simply was not there.

The lesson one learned was

negative, of what not to do, and

we also learned that it’s a

damned good thing that those

who were running the higher

stuff should know exactly

what was going on in the

field and not be full of fancies.

McNaughton was a perfectionist — an

essential quality for effective counter-battery

work. He took his technical lead from soldiers

like V Corps’ Lieutenant-Colonel A.G. Haig

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(no relation of Sir Douglas) and scientists

such as Lawrence Bragg, the twenty-five-year-old

Nobel Prize winner for physics in 1915 who

had been commissioned and brought to the

Western Front specifically to improve British

gunnery.

THE AIR ARM

Good gunnery was predicated on good

observation, calculation and analysis; and

since the Germans generally held the higher

ground on the Western Front — certainly

in the case of Vimy Ridge — a good view of

the German rear areas, where their heavy

batteries were situated, was best achieved from

the air. Sometimes from captive balloons,

with two observers slung in a basket underneath,

more often from two-seater ‘corps’ aeroplanes.

In 1916-1917 there was no Canadian air

force. Sam Hughes had created one in 1914

but, like so many of his schemes, it had been

a bungled afffair and died an inconspicuous

and ignominious death somewhere on Salisbury

Plain. Meanwhile, Canadians in their hundreds

had been — and still were — joining the British

Army’s Royal Flying Corps (and the Royal

Naval Air Service), some by direct entry and

some by transfer from the Canadian Corps.

By the end of 1916 airmen on the Western

Front had two major rôles. Charged with

attaining and maintaining air superiority, so

that German aircraft could not operate

over Entente lines and their own colleagues

of the corps squadrons could go about

their duties undisturbed, were the fighter

pilots, who were not yet the media

heroes they would become. Canadians

such as the Bell-Irving brothers from

Vancouver, Malcolm McBean and Alan

Duncan, had been prominent among

them from mid-1915, with future aces

such as Raymond Collishaw (of

Nanaimo, BC), Roy Brown (Carleton

Place, Ontario) and A.W. Carter (Calgary)

reaching the front in early 1917.

W.A. Bishop, from Owen Sound, Ontario,

had spent four months of 1916 on the

Western Front as an observer in a corps

squadron, then returned to England

for pilot training. He would re-appear,

as a fighter pilot, in March 1917.

As with the ground forces, the fighter

arm of the RFC had learned much from

the French experience at Verdun, mostly

by way of using squadron formations

to settle the question of air superiority.

In that respect, however, they were

still some way behind the Germans who

had begun to adopt formation tactics

in early 1916 and, a year later, were now

forming élite squadrons, Jägdstaffeln

(often shortened to Jastas), to be moved

about the front as operational exigencies

demanded.The best of them was probably

Oswald Boelke’s Jasta 2, which numbered

among its up-and-coming young pilots

Manfred, Freiherr von Richthofen, soon to

be better known as ‘the Red Baron.’ In

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April, flying over the Arras front (that

included Vimy Ridge), the Red Baron would

claim a phenomenal thirty victories.

The more mundane work of aerial

reconnaissance and photography, artillery

observation and contact patrolling, was

done by pilots and observers of the corps

squadrons, so-called because one such

squadron was allocated to each army corps.

No.16 Squadron, with its two-seater

BE 2s, was assigned to the Canadian Corps

during the winter of 1916-1917 (and

would stay with it for the remainder of

the war). Canadians tended to concentrate

in the fighter squadrons but, typically,

there were at least four Canadians flying

in No. 16 as it went about photographing

the otherwise invisible ground behind

Vimy Ridge.

By early March, air photos of the German

defence system formed the basis of a new

map which was continually being brought up

to date as enemy dispositions changed. All

this was grist to McNaughton’s mill, as he

combined it with the geometric techniques

of ground-based sound ranging and flash

spotting to plot the position of more than

one hundred and eighty of the two hundred

and twelve German batteries deployed

behind the Vimy front. But the price paid

was often heavy, since in the spring of

1917 the Germans held the edge in the air

both tactically and technologically. Only

numerically was the Entente superior.

Letters and diaries of the men in the

trenches at the time are filled with references

to the air battle.‘I have seen dozens of fights

in the air in the last three weeks,’ wrote

Lieutenant Clifford Wells, a Montreal minister’s

son serving the 8th Battalion, on 26 March.*

It is a beautiful sight to see the

planes manoeuvring in the air

like two hawks, and to hear the

puff, puff, puff of their machine-guns,

the sound of which is softened

by distance. Each plane tries to

get above the other, so as to

swoop down upon it.... Often

I have seen a plane — British,

French, or German — engaged

in taking photographs or

observing artillery fire suddenly

brought down by a hostile

plane which swooped down

on it out of the clouds.When

a German plane comes

over our lines — which is

comparatively seldom — the

anti-aircraft guns open up,

and soon the sky is dotted with

scores or even hundreds of

white puffs of smoke where the

shells burst.... I have rarely seen

an aeroplane brought down by

artillery fire alone. Usually it takes

a plane to bring down a plane.

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* Wells would be killed in action a month and two days after writing this letter.


Canadian anti-aircraft gunners prepare for action. [LAC PA 974]

German dug-outs. German quarters behind the line were little different from those of Canadians —‚ but because they usually held the higher ground, their front line dug-outs were usually deeper, better-built, and better drained. [DND DHist-8]

This two-seater seems to have crashed and burned — or did it burn first and then crash? The difference may have been important to the men who flew it without parachutes. [LAC PA 957]

German wounded receiving treatment. [DND DHist-9]


Airmen were not issued with

parachutes, senior RFC commanders

holding that possession of such convenient

‘escape’ devices would only encourage

their use! Two days earlier, Gunner Frank

Ferguson, a motor-mechanic serving

with the 9.2-inch howitzers of the 1st Siege

Battery, had watched an artillery observation

machine ‘shot to pieces’, and recorded the

event in his diary.

With the controls shot away,

the pilot made a grand effort

to land the ship by crawling out

on the tail and trying to balance

it on an even keel, but his weight

was too great and down went

the tail, sticking the nose in the

air. He then crawled back into

the cockpit to try and level it out

again, but it was a losing battle,

and with a sickening rush it

dove into the ground completely

pulverizing the pilot and his

observer.

A NEW GERMAN DOCTRINE

The Germans had been shocked by

their casualties on the Somme. At Verdun,

as the attackers, they had expected to

lose as many men as the French, and von

Falkenhayn had based his strategy on

simply outlasting his opponents in terms

of morale; but a very different result

had been expected from the Somme fighting

in which the Entente had done all the

attacking. Conventional wisdom stipulated

that defence was the stronger form of

warfare, since the defender could choose

his ground, prepare it in advance, and

fight from cover. Given those advantages

his losses should be lighter, but something

had gone terribly wrong on the Somme

for German losses there had been about

as high as those of the British and French,

even though they were defending.

In the long term, Ludendorff now knew,

that kind of result could only bring eventual

defeat since the Central Powers lacked

the human and material resources of their

opponents.The United States were still

neutral, but much American production was

going to the British and French and none

to the Germans; and should the Americans

enter the war (as they looked more like

doing every day) then the ultimate balance

of power would shift even more in his

enemies’ favour. Already, mourned Ludendorff,

‘in every theatre of war the Entente was

able to add to its numerical superiority

enormous additional resources in every

department of technical supply.’

One of the first things that he had done,

therefore, on coming to the Western Front,

was to instruct staff officers to try and devise

a more economical form of defence.The

result pleased him.

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A front-line barber shop. Canadiantroops were expected to shave everyday. [DND PMR 92-002]

Wounded Canadians, no doubt happy to be alive. [LAC PA 813]

Old trench-lines behind theCanadian front and theArras-Souchez road. Note the extent to which modernarmies were coming to rely on motorized transportwhenever metalled roadsmade it practicable. [DND DHist-11]


In sharp contrast to the form

of defence hitherto employed,

which had been restricted

to rigid and easily recognizable

lines of defence of little depth,

a new system was devised, which,

by distribution in depth and the

adoption of a loose formation,

enabled a more active defence to

be maintained. It was of course

intended that the position should

remain in our hands at the end

of the battle, but the infantryman

need no longer say to himself:

“Here I must stand or fall,” but had,

on the contrary, the right within

certain limits to retire in any direction

before strong enemy fire.Any part

of the line that was lost was to be

recovered by counter-attack.

Writing My War Memoirs in 1919,

Ludendorff was addressing himself to the

general public and surveying the whole

scope of the war. At that level his generalized

explanation was probably adequate; but

because we are concerned only with what

happened on Vimy Ridge, where the

unusual topography significantly affected

the arrangement of defensive positions,

it is necessary to explain this new doctrine

in rather more detail.

As expressed in the manual that the

German High Command put out at the time,

defences should be deep rather than shallow,

elastic rather than rigid, based on strong-points

rather than continuous trenches (although

the latter might still exist). Consequently,‘the

first thing to be constructed along the

enemy front is a strongly developed position

organized in depth. It will consist of a

trench system of a number of continuous

non-parallel lines at intervals of about

150 to 200 metres’, or a spacing three times

that of the old system.

Behind it, at least one other position

(for which the same rules applied) was to

be established; and the distance between

the two positions was to be calculated

so that an ememy bombardment of both

simultaneously was ruled out.That meant

a minimum gap of two or three thousand

meters between them.

The front lines should rely more on

firepower than manpower, which, of course,

meant more machine-guns.‘The framework

of all infantry combat lines is constituted by

the firing positions of the machine-guns

and the defensive bunkers.’ Even so,‘the bulk

of the defenders (including the machine-guns)

is to be kept in the rearward lines, in the

intermediary terrain between them, in the

communication trenches and in the area

behind the first position.’

Ground need not be held on principle.

If, to economize in lives, it became necessary

to relinquish some ground, then quick

counter-attacks, launched without waiting

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for orders from higher authority, might well

recover lost positions before the attackers could

consolidate their gains. If these immediate

counter-attacks should fail, then ‘the only thing

that will lead to recapturing the lost ground

is a systematically-planned [counter-]attack.’

The re-capture of lost

position sectors is, however, not

always recommended; instead,

the importance of the terrain

intended for capture must be

in proper proportion to the

anticipated losses in men, and

the ammunition that will have

to be expended.

‘Systematically-planned’ counter-attacks

should be launched by fresh troops,

unaffected by the earlier fighting; and to

ensure that they really were fresh, they

should be held back beyond the range of

the enemy’s heaviest artillery — which

meant that they would usually start from

billets several hours’ march away from

the battlefield.

All along the Western Front in early 1917,

German commanders were busy putting these

new concepts into effect — except on Vimy Ridge.

VIMY RIDGE

Running across the western edge of

the Douai plain, rising to a maximum height

of a hundred and ten metres above the

surrounding lowlands,Vimy Ridge stretches

for eight kilometres along a north-west/

south-east axis, just north of Arras. The

northern tip rises quite abruptly from the

Souchez ravine to a small knoll, known

in 1917 as the Giesslerhöhe to the Germans

and Hill 120, or the Pimple, to the Canadians.

From the Pimple, a high saddle leads

to the main mass of the ridge, with its

highest point, Hill 145 (that number of

metres above sea level, where the Vimy

Memorial now stands), two kilometres to

the south-east. From Hill 145 the crest

slopes down to Hill 135, three-and-a-half

kilometres away, widening and flattening

as it goes; and then the Ridge drops gently

away into the valley of the Scarpe river.

Looked at from the west the ridge rises

very gradually from the Arras-Souchez road; but

on its north-eastern side it falls away quite

precipitously. Before the war the south-western

slope had been open farmland, while the

crest was largely pastureland (today it is wooded

in the north and centre, with open fields on

the flattened southern top), but two years of

shelling and mining had turned it into a

wasteland of craters and mud. The north-eastern

slope, however, was still well-wooded.

The ridge had fallen to the Germans

in October 1914 and the French had made

their first attempt at recovering it in

mid-December 1914, when they attacked

with six divisions; but the mud had proved

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too deep, the fog too thick, and the 1st Bavarian

Reserve Corps too obstinate. After preliminary

operations cost the attackers nearly eight thousand

casualties, the main assault was postponed.

In the early summer of 1915, while the

Canadians were busy at Festubert and Givenchy,

the French had thrown eighteen divisions into

their postponed attack — and been repulsed. They

had lost more than a hundred thousand men, the

Germans about eighty thousand. Nevertheless,

in September they tried again,with nine divisions;

and the Germans, with eight, — ‘fighting as if

in a fortress’ — still held them off, although the

French did capture Souchez and the Pimple,

and almost reached the crest of Hill 145, at the

cost of another forty thousand casualties.

The following February, however, the Germans

had recovered the Pimple in a perfectly-executed

surprise attack. And after the British had taken

over the Vimy sector in early March 1916, another

surprise assault had re-captured fifteen hundred

metres of their front and support lines on the

slopes of Hill 145.

Since then, Briton and German had been

industriously extending old tunnels and digging

new ones in their attempts to undermine

defences that apparently could not be taken by

any amount of gallant action above ground.

No other part of the Western Front had proved

as impregnable as Vimy Ridge, and it seems

that the new German doctrine was not

implemented there for two relatively, and

one absolutely, irrefutable reasons.

• Firstly, the defences had proved more

than adequate in the past, and the

1st Bavarian Reserve Corps (commanded

by General Karl von Fasbender) which

was responsible for most of them, was

apparently not anxious to make changes.

Apart from a few bloody weeks on the

Somme, the Bavarians had been there

since 1914. They were part of Generaloberst

von Falkenhausen’s Sixth Army; and von

Falkenhausen was a seventy-three-year-old

conservative, perhaps willing to accept,

but certainly not to press, new ideas; while

his chief of staff, Generalmajor Freiherr

von Nagal zu Aichberg, was not the man to

push him.

• Secondly, the Bavarians had exercised

considerable skill and ingenuity in locating

and constructing fortifications which

added immensely to the natural strength of

the position — but which did not conform

to the new principles, since much of the

work had been done before the latter

had been promulgated. Their value would

be minimized if major tactical changes

were instituted.

• Thirdly, and irrefutably, the unusual nature

of the ground — particularly that steep

north-eastern face of the ridge — made

it impracticable to implement the new

doctrine properly. The northern part

of the ridge was simply too narrow

to build the deeper first position as

recommended; and if the enemy should

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It was essential to keep trenches as dry as possible to guard against the ravages of “trench foot,” an affliction much like frostbite, brought about by prolonged exposure to damp and cold. These French-Canadians working to minimize the damp were with the 22nd Battalion. [LAC PA 396]

The deeper you could dig, the more protection you had. But how Canadian “highlanders” could remain at all comfortable or warm in their mud-caked kilts is a mystery. These soldiers were serving with the 13 th Battalion (RoyalHighlanders) from Montreal. [LAC PA 95]

There was mud and water everywhere — even behind the front, where you could find hot coffee. [LAC PA 926]


reach the eastern edge of the crest, then

the second position, on the plain below,

would be entirely exposed to fire from

guns sited safely beyond the crest.

Moreover, any kind of counter-attack

up its steep eastern face, whether immediate

or systematically-planned, was likely to be

suicidal. Perhaps that was why the two reserve

divisions intended in theory for that purpose

were held much further back than usual,

six hours’ marching away, beyond the range

of artillery fire from the crest.

Good soldiers all, von Fassbender’s men

nevertheless went through the motions.

Because the opposing front lines ran almost

due north and south, while the ridge angled

to the south-east, the second position began

fifteen hundred metres behind the first at

the southern end, and twice that distance

behind the higher, steeper, northern end. But,

apparently because of the utter futility of

well developed on it, the second position was

never as heavily manned as it should have been.

Consequently, as winter moved into spring,

Gruppe Vimy (the 1st Bavarian Reserve Division

and 79th Reserve Division, constituting the

1st Bavarian Reserve Corps) and the southern

wing of Gruppe Souchez (16th Bavarian Division),

sat tight in their linear, shallow, well-fortified

positions, unwilling and virtually unable to modify

their stances in accordance with the new

doctrine, and trusting that their ground could

be held in the old, officially-discredited, way.

These divisions had, between them,

five regiments (a German regiment of

three battalions was equivalent to a Canadian

brigade) garrisoning the Ridge; and each

regiment held its portion of the first position

with two understrength battalions, while

the third manned the second position. There

would be approximately seven thousand

Germans available to oppose any initial

assault, with a possible reinforcement of

two-and-a-half thousand more to meet

the ‘follow-up’ forces close behind — no

more than ten thousand men altogether.

When the time came, the Canadians would

attack them with about thirty-five thousand.

STRATEGIC PLANS AND SURPRISES

At the Chantilly Conference held in

November 1916, Joffre and Haig had optimistically

agreed that their object would be ‘the

endowment of the campaigns of 1917 with

a decisive character’; and, to that end, they

would ‘be ready to undertake general offensives

from the first fortnight of February 1917 with

all the means at their disposal.’ Promptly, Joffre

had begun to make plans for a continuation of

the Battle of the Somme on a wider front.

His December replacement by Nivelle

led to radical changes, however, as the latter

confidently (over-confidently, in the light of

subsequent events) plotted the total destruction

of the German armies in the west rather than

the battle of attrition that Joffre had visualized.

German forces were to be pinned down in

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In a stark but dignified ceremony, a Canadian officer is buried in a temporary grave. Later, his remains would be transferred to an official war cemetery — one of those still immaculately maintained today by the Imperial War Graves Commission. [LAC PA 652]

Waiting for the battle. Their rifles stacked in a bay to the left of the picture, infantrymen rest (and, in most cases, try to sleep) in the front line. [DND 0-2533]

As they moved east in the course of their great voluntary withdrawal, Fall Alberich, the Germans destroyed as much as they could. In this case, a mine has been exploded at a crossroads in the town of Ham. Frencb troops, following up, examine the damage (and a photographer is at work, right centre, recording the extent of it.) [LAC PA 4339]


other sectors while an attaque brusquée

(by a force totalling forty-six divisions, half of

them for the initial assault and the other

half to exploit that success) was launched

over the Chemin des Dames, the southern

shoulder of the great German salient that

extended north from Soissons to Arras.

Nivelle would first break a hole in the German

line and then drive northward, along a chord

of the salient, thus cutting off whole German

armies from their supplies.

On the northern rim of the salient, a

second French attack, to be mounted in

conjunction with a British thrust before

the main attack began, would drive on

Cambrai.The northern shoulder was

buttressed by Vimy Ridge, and on the ground

immediately to the south of it, along the

Scarpe river, the British Third Army would

launch its push towards Cambrai.These

two diversionary assaults, creating a kind

of small-scale pincer movement, were

primarily intended to draw German reserves

away from the Chemin des Dames before

Nivelle made his decisive move; but there

was a distinct hope (at least on the part

of the British) that they would be eminently

successful in their own right.

All these exciting plans were set in some

disarray by an enemy who moved first. As

soon as he had arrived on the Western Front,

Ludendorff had ordered the construction

of a reserve line (named the Siegfried Stellung

by the Germans and the Hindenburg Line

by the British) along a chord of the salient,

to counter any unexpected Entente successes.

Its existence would also enable him to

evacuate the salient without upsetting the

overall arrangement of his defences,

should he ever wish to do so. In Fall Alberich,

the aptly-codenamed (after the malicious

dwarf of the Nibelung saga) preparation for

that, the Germans laid waste to the whole

area between the two lines, destroying roads,

bridges, railways and buildings.

French security was poor, and the

forthcoming offensives widely talked about.

In mid-March, Ludendorff did indeed order

a general withdrawal (averaging more than

thirty kilometres in depth) to the Siegfried

Stellung, reducing the length of his front

between Arras and Soissons by a third at

one stroke, adding thirteen divisions to his

reserves, and vastly reducing Nivelle’s

prospects. Since his chosen ground, the

Chemin des Dames, lay east of Soissons,

the change would not effect the initial attack,

but the prospect of developing it into a

decisive victory vanished with the evacuation

of the salient.

The implementation of Alberich, moreover,

completely upset the prospects of the

French attack in the north and compelled

the British to alter their plans accordingly.

Instead of Anglo-French pincers closing on

Cambrai, Sir Edmund Allenby’s Third Army

must try to advance on that objective alone,

on a fourteen kilometre-wide front down

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Casualties were a regular, daily misfortune, not restricted to the greatoffensives of the war. [LAC PA 852]

An army not only marches on its stomach — it attacks on it too.[LAC PA 255]

Although not nearly so temperamental asthe Canadian-made Ross rifle, the LeeEnfield still required constant attention to keep it in good order. During the First World War, kilts were still acceptable in the field but khaki “aprons” were worn over them to try to save them from the mud. [LAC PA 163]

These men are waiting for dark before moving up to the front and carrying out a raid on the enemy’s trenches. Trench raids were meant to gather infonnation and prisoners — and maintain the offensive spirit. [LAC PA 906]


the valley of the Scarpe. The French, struggling

through the empty wasteland of the former

salient, would guard Allenby’s southern flank,

and Sir Henry Horne’s First Army — which

included the Canadian Corps — would be

responsible for the northern side.

Preparations which had started in

January were intensified. In material terms

there was much to be done.The Corps

could muster two hundred and fifty heavy

guns and howitzers (one for every

twenty metres of frontage) and more

than six hundred field guns and lighter

howitzers.* Nearly two-and-a-half thousand

tonnes of ammunition were required

each day for the harassing and counter-battery

fire which went on throughout the

preparatory stages of the operation, rising

gradually towards a crescendo, while

forty-two thousand tonnes were stored

behind the gun lines, to be fired during

the attack.

To move all this ammunition, three miles

of new tramway were constructed, and the

existing twenty miles partly reconstructed.

Plank roads were built — and re-built as often

as the German guns destoyed them.The

tunnels mentioned earlier were dug, and fitted

with water and electricity and telephones;

and mines, were bored under the German lines,

their ends packed with high explosive so

that at the right moment key strongpoints

and their garrisons could be blown sky-high.

Three hundred kilometres of telephone

cables, buried to a depth of two metres,

were laid along the corps front. One hundred

portable bridges were constructed to

enable field artillery to cross the trenches

and get forward when the time came.

The sudden concentration of

fifty thousand horses and mules to

pull trams and carry supplies within

a restricted area where water was in

short supply necessitated the construction

of reservoirs, pumping stations, and

seventy kilometres of pipeline. Provision

had to be made for the treatment and

rapid evacuation of casualties, removal

of prisoners, and disposal of the dead.

Most of this work was carried out by night

but it was simply not possible to conceal the

results, since the Canadian lines were perfectly

visible to observers on the ridge.The Germans

could not help but know that an attack was in

the offing. Confident in the strength of their

positions, they made little attempt to interfere,

however. From time to time, (as they would

normally do, in any case) they laid on small

raids by night, and they occasionally used

their artillery in attempts to destroy some of

the Canadian preparations; but that only

enabled the artillery observation flights of

No. 16 Squadron to plot the position of

the batteries employed and the Canadian

artillery to retaliate with counter-battery fire.

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* Howitzers were high-angle, large-calibre guns, most useful for shelling trenches and buildings since theshell dropped almost vertically.


In conjunction with their preparations for

an attack, the Canadians had established a

major raiding programme designed to disturb

the enemy and injure his morale while

learning as much as possible about the ground

they must eventually take and how it was

defended. And, since these raids were

commonly supported by artillery fire and

the infantry had to be protected by a

‘box’ barrage while they were in the enemy

lines, such raids provided an excellent

opportunity to practice infantry/artillery

co-operation.

On the night of 12/13 February some

nine hundred men of the 10th Infantry

Brigade ‘inflicted an estimated 160 casualties

(including the capture of more than

50 prisoners) and destroyed dug-outs, mine

shafts and barbed wire; their own losses

totalled approximately 150.’According to the

raid report, the prisoners included ‘one

officer and three NCOs. Prisoners were of

exceptionately (sic) good physique and appeared

generally very intelligent.... Cotton underwear

was worn by all ranks captured.’*

Recounting the result of the raid in

such bland words gives no idea of the

ferocity of the hand-to-hand fighting

that marked most such incidents. In the

enemy trenches, clubs, bayonets and

bombs or grenades were the most used

weapons, as when one strongpoint

‘was dealt with by bombers using

“P” [phosphorus] Bombs.’

A large number of these bombs

were used on the dugouts in

the TRIANGLE, forcing the occupants

out. These were mostly blinded

by phosphorus fumes. Owing to the

very high parapet of trench and

difficulty of leading these men as

prisoners, it was found necessary

to kill them.

Such actions made nonsense of the Hague

Conventions, just as the German introduction

of gas, two years earlier, had done. In the

darkness and confusion of trench raiding, it

was usually a case of kill or be killed for

both Canadian and German.

At the end of the month, it was the

Canadians’ turn to suffer as the largest raid

of the winter turned out to be a complete

fiasco. Seventeen hundred men of the same

brigade went out to reconnoitre and inflict

damage on the defences of Hill 145 without

any preliminary bombardment or wire

cutting. Gas was to be used instead, and

that required successive postponements

while waiting for a favourable wind.

‘This night by night postponement ...

extended for more than a week and must

have allowed the Germans to learn what was

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* Cotton was one of the products theoretically deniedGerman by the Royal Navy’s blockade. Its presence on well nourished German bodies would hardly havemade the Admiralty happy.


intended,’ recalled Lieutenant-General E.L.M.

Burns — then the rather junior signals officer of

the brigade concerned — in his 1970 memoir,

General Mud.

The officers of the raiding battalions

and brigade headquarters concluded

that there would be no surprise and that

therefore the whole operation ought to

be abandoned.These views were pressed

on division [Watson] and corps [Byng]

headquarters, but the higher command

decided that the operations should

nevertheless take place. I well recall

overhearing General Odlum [the brigade

commander] arguing with division

for the cancellation of the raid, using

very stiff, almost insubordinate language.

Nevertheless, against the opposition

of the officers who would have to carry

it out, the raid took place early in

the morning of the 1st of March.

Not only were the Germans expecting

them, but the gas did more harm than good.

Some witnesses report that

a German bombardment of

our front lines had broken a few

of the gas cylinders, and the

escaping gas caused the first trouble.

When the gas was released in

bulk, the wind drifted it to the south,

almost parallel with our lines,

instead of across into the German

positions.... Seemingly, little or

no gas was blown to the German

trenches on the front of attack....

Under a murderous fire, and faced

with substantially intact barbed

wire obstacles, the unfortunate

attackers were mown down.

Nevertheless, the survivors bravely

pressed on and broke into the German

strongpoint. It is not known how many

Germans were killed and wounded, but

thirty-seven were taken prisoner — for

the loss of nearly seven hundred Canadians,

including two battalion commanders.

A great many dead and wounded men

were left behind in the darkness, and shortly

after daybreak the Germans offered a truce

to enable the battlefield to be cleared. On some

parts of the front a Christmas truce had been

arranged in December 1914 (when British

and German soldiers had exchanged toasts, and

even kicked a soccer ball about No-man’s-land)

but that fraternization had been frowned upon

by higher authorities, and instructions issued

that it must not re-occur. The 3rd of March 1917

marked an exception, however, and over the

two hours that the truce lasted Captain D.S. Elliot

of the 73rd Battalion found himself conversing

with a German ‘brigadier’.* He wrote home to

describe his unusual experience.

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* The German Army had no such rank, their regiments(equivalent to British and Canadian brigades) beingcommanded by full colonels.The War Diary of the 87th Battalion describes him as a major, a rank appropriateto a German battalion commander. Apparently CaptainElliot was weak on German rank insignia.


He [the German officer] was

loud in his praises of Major Travers

Lucas, of Hamilton, who, he said,

had led his men so gallantly right

up to their wire. Apparently it

was not a common practice with

their own officers....The German

Brigadier was a Bavarian, and,

to talk to, not a bad sort. He was

educated at St. Paul’s School

in London, and spoke perfect

English. He didn’t like war, he

said, and hoped it would soon

be over, and mentioned how queer

it would seem to go back to our

different lines after the truce and

‘pot at one another again.’ These

were his own words. Indeed, the whole

affair seemed so queer, standing

upright out there in broad daylight,

without a shot being fired, that it

seemed to most of us like a dream.

The full repercussions of that disastrous

night are hard to assess. It may have given

the enemy a false sense of confidence, but it

must also have shaken the confidence of

the Canadians, officers and men alike, in those

higher commanders who had insisted on

the raid taking place in defiance of common

sense. However, other raids before it had

been successful and others after it (from

20 March until 9 April smaller raids were

carried out almost every night, at different

points along the Canadian front) would

also be successful.

Far behind the front, the infantry

was being put through its paces, in line

with the lessons learned from the French.

An American volunteer, Private George V. Bell,

recorded in his unpublished memoir that

‘we went through a full-dress rehearsal for

the capture of Vimy Ridge.’

A large stretch of ground was

taped off to resemble as nearly

as possible enemy positions on the

ridge, and for a month we practised

the attack, so that every man had

in his mind a picture of the conditions

on the ridge, and knew the part he

was to play when the curtain went up.

They were damn efficient in those

rehearsals. It would never do for the

actors to forget their lines.

Once again we moved forward

and what a sight met our eyes. Every

road and pathway for miles back of

our front was choked with brigades of

British* infantry, all moving forward,

batteries of massive siege guns and

field artillery, cavalry, battalions of

engineers, hundreds of motor lorries

with ammunition and rations, [stage]

properties for this great drama. All

moving forward in the direction

of Vimy Ridge and we knew that

something big was under way.

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* Being an American, Bell (like the Germans) usuallymade no distinction between Canadians and Britons.


Another participant recorded that ‘the

“attacking” troops carried exactly what

they would carry on the day of the assault;

thus equipped they practised getting out

of jumping-off trenches as quickly as possible

and keeping up with the barrage. And

mounted officers, carrying flags, rode ahead

of the men at the same pace as a rolling barrage.’

Success at Vimy would depend on

precise administration, careful preparation

and perfect co-ordination.There could

be no surprise, except in the matter of exact

timing. In the last three weeks’ preceding

the attack a million shells were fired at the

Ridge, on to a piece of ground eight thousand

metres long by five thousand metres in

depth. Not unexpectedly, then, on the last

day of March, midway through that great

bombardment, Kronprinz Rupprecht von

Bayern, commanding the group of German

armies that included the 6th Army, noted that

‘an enquiry at 1 Bavarian Reserve Corps is

answered in the sense that it expects the

enemy attack to take place in about ten days.’

The next day he added that:

A captured Canadian stated that after

six to ten days of artillery preparation the

attack on Vimy Ridge would be launched

before the middle of the month. It seems

to be correct after all that four Canadian

divisions are committed in that area.

According to the same Canadian prisoner,

gas cylinders have been placed into

position in the sector of the attack.

As with much intelligence, some of

that information was right and some

wrong.After the débâcle of 1 March, the

Canadians had no intention of using

gas cylinders, although there would be

a proportion of gas shells thrown into

the final bombardment.

By 6 April (the day that the United

States entered the war, following

the sinking of several American ships

by U-boats, hard on the heels of the

German proclamation of unrestricted

submarine warfare) Kronprinz Rupprecht

concluded that ‘all signs are pointing to

the imminence of the attack in the Arras

sector.’ Generaloberst von Falkenhausen

had lost none of his confidence, however.

His appreciation of the following day

was that ‘the men seem to be mentally

and physically less alert after the strain

of the last few days’ bombardment, but

should be capable of withstanding a

major offensive.’

How wrong he was.Twenty-four hours

later, Frank Ferguson wrote:

— Easter Sunday — During

the night 1,420 shells arrived

on lorries and all hands are busy

washing them and putting them

in neat rows. Had to roll them for

a while.Then we went to the guns

to fire 500 rounds. A swell lot of

Christians we are.

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While the guns fired, Jack Harris and

ten thousand of his fellow Canadians were filing

into the thirteen tunnels (their entrances

marked by red and white barber poles) that led

to the front line. Another ten thousand were

filtering into the front line trenches and

old mine craters, some of them no more

than fifty metres from the enemy outposts,

awaiting the signal that would send them

‘over the top’.

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At this point readers might like to pull out the map inserted here in order that they may be able to appreciate the relationships between divisions,brigaders and battalions, and follow the course of the Canadian attack graphically as well as textually.


CHAPTER III


CHAPTER III

EASTER MONDAY

As we have already noted, the attack

on Vimy Ridge was one small part of a

much larger attack by the British Third and

First Armies (with the weight of it carried

by the former), but the enemy was in no

doubt about the importance of the ridge

or the quality of the troops preparing to take

it.‘Committed at the most important spot

was the Canadian Corps, counted among

the best troops of the opponent,’ wrote

General Hermann von Kuhl, Kronprinz

Rupprecht’s chief of staff.

In the early hours of the morning

(Ludendorff’s fifty-second birthday, as well

as Easter Monday) rain turned to sleet

and snow, driven along the ridge by a strong

north-westerly wind.The artillery had been

firing a mixture of high explosive and gas

shells all night (at a slowly decreasing rate,

to lull the enemy into a belief that the attack

would not come just yet) with never more

than half the available batteries in action. Soon

that would change.There was one heavy gun

for each eighteen metres of Canadian front, and

one field gun for every nine metres, more

than double the density that had been employed

on the Somme.

5:28 am. Machine guns started.

5:30 am. Mines [exploded].

5:30 1⁄2 am. Guns started.

All eight hundred and fifty Canadian guns,

supplemented by two hundred and eighty more

of I (British) Corps (on the Canadians’ left) and

First Army were firing on the ridge as fast as the

gunners — those of them with shells to handle

sweating despite the chill — could reload their

pieces.The heavy guns concentrated on the

one hundred and seventy-five identified German

batteries within their range, on ammunition

dumps and key communication nodes.The field

artillery fired for three minutes on the foremost

German trenches and then their fire began to

creep forward, lifting ninety metres every

three minutes. Close behind it trudged the leading

wave of infantry.

THE PLAN

This was a straightforward frontal assault,

as all offensive operations on the Western Front

were at this stage of the war. The plan devised

by Byng and his staff was simple in principle,

complex in application, and its success

depended primarily upon perfect co-operation

among the attackers. All four Canadian divisions

would attack in line, arrayed in numerical

order from south to north. Since the Canadian

front line lay at an angle to the ridge, which

was steeper and higher to the north, the

1st Division would need to advance four thousand

metres over easier ground to reach its

objectives in Farbus Wood, whereas a mere

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seven hundred metres (albeit over steeper

and more strongly fortified slopes) would carry the

4th Division over the key summit of Hill 145.

To meet those differing circumstances, the

assault would be broken down into four bounds,

each distinguished on the map by a coloured

line.The Black line lay along the rear of the

enemy’s forward positions, roughly paralleling

his front line, while the Red ran north along the

Zwischen Stellung, or German second line, crossing

the crest into the Bois de la Folie before turning

north-westward,along the eastern rim of the ridge.

Reaching the Red line would complete the

tasks of the 3rd and 4th Divisions, but on the

fronts of the 1st and 2nd two more bounds

would be required.There a Blue line would

include the hamlet of Thélus, Hill 135, and the

woods overlooking the village of Vimy. And

the Brown Line, running through Farbus Wood,

Farbus itself, and the Bois de Bonval, and

constituting their final objectives, would bring

them to the lower slopes of the south-eastern

edge of the ridge, on the outskirts of Vimy.

Almost detached from the northern end of

the ridge and overlooked by Hill 145 — which

also masked it from the Scarpe valley to the

south — the Pimple was important because it,

in turn, overlooked Souchez and the Canadian

line of communications that ran through Zouave

valley. Its capture was not absolutely vital to

success, although its acquisition would complete

a notable feat of arms.There were not

enough troops available, however, to attack

it simultaneously with the other objectives

and it might reasonably be left alone for

twenty-four hours, until the main length of

the ridge was securely in Canadian hands.

The whole front would begin to move

at 5:30 am, and the 3rd and 4th Divisions

should be on their objectives by 7:05. After

a pause of two-and-a-half hours (to leapfrog

reserve brigades through, and move up some

artillery) the 1st and 2nd Divisions would

resume their advance, reaching their final

objectives by 1:18 pm. Once they had all been

taken, an outpost line would be backed by

a support line just beyond the crest, with a

main line of resistance established a hundred

metres down the western — or what would

then be the reverse — slope, where it would

be unobservable by the enemy ground forces

and largely secure against artillery bombardment.

Finally Byng laid down a ruling which

his biographer claims (probably rightly, at least

as far as the British were concerned) ‘was

revolutionary at that stage of the War.’

In the event of any Division

or Brigade being held up, the units

on the flanks will on no account

check their advance, but will form

defensive flanks in that direction

and press forward themselves

so as to envelop the strong point

or centre of resistance which is

preventing the advance.With this

object in view reserves will be

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9-inch guns firing by night and day. [LAC PA 1178, PA 1182]

The 17th Battery, Canadian Field Artillery,firing a captured German field gun. Theuse of enemy guns when possible was writteninto the Vimy operational plan because it would take so long to bring Canadianartillery up through the mud on to the crest of the ridge. [LAC PA 1018]


pushed in behind those portions

of the line that are successful rather

than those which are held up.

In other words, success, not failure,

should be reinforced.

That was all very well in its way, but

complete success must begin and end with the

capture of Hill 145. In the long term, the

achievements of the 1st Division (Major-

General Currie) would be dependent upon

the 2nd (Burstall) capturing Thélus; Thelus

could only be held if the 3rd Division (Lipsett)

took La Folie farm; and the 3rd could not

expect to be successful unless the commanding

height of Hill 145 fell to Watson’s 4th Division.

THE 1st DIVISION — ‘NOTHING

COULD STOP US....’

The 1st Division had farther to go but its

assigned front would narrow as it advanced, so

that the initial assault was launched by its

2nd and 3rd Brigades, side by side, with the

1st Brigade scheduled to pass through them

on the Brown Line, where the frontage began

to narrow quickly.Even the divisional commander,

Arthur Currie, found the barrage ‘awesome’,

yet once it passed over their trenches and

dug-outs a number of gallant Germans were

up in time to turn their machine-guns on the

advancing infantry. ‘The line,however,pressed

steadily on, keeping well up to the magnificent

rolling barrage,’ according to the after-action

report of the 3rd Brigade.

The first Canadians reached what was

left of the enemy’s foremost trenches

while most of the surviving defenders

were still in their deep dug-outs, five to

ten metres below ground level. Since

the attackers were ‘leaning on the barrage’,

as the expression went, no more than

half a minute elapsed after it lifted before

men with grenades or phosphorus

bombs were at the entrances to the

dug-outs, dropping or rolling them

inside before moving on.

All battalions report that

as usual, the too impetuous

pressed forward into the

barrage and some undoubtedly

became casualties....

The 14th Battalion suffered

heavy casualties here, and

of the four hostile machine-guns

which attempted to hold up

their advance, 2 were put out

of action by Mills bombs, one

was attacked and put out

of action by a party led by

Lieut.DAVIDSON, while the

remaining gun was captured

personally by C[ompany]

S[ergeant] M[ajor] HURLEY,

who bayoneted the crew.

Two more machine-gun posts fell to

Private W.J. Milne, a Scottish-born member

of the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion.

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The whistle blows, and it’s time to go“over the bags.” [LAC PA 648]

“The line, however, pressed steadilyon, keeping well up to the magnificentrolling barrage.” [LAC PA 1046]

Private William Milne won his VC for subduing a machine-gun position like this one, on VimyRidge near Thélus. [LAC PA 1122]


As little groups of riflemen crept towards the first

post ‘from three sides’ (German machine-gunners

were rarely in a hurry to withdraw):

... a series of bomb explosions

was heard in the direction of the

enemy gun and ... Private Milne

sprang up from a shell hole close

to it, signalling his comrades to

advance. He had crawled round

on his hands and knees to

within bombing distance of

the enemy machine-gun crew,

and with hand grenades had put

every one of them out of action.

In the second case there is less detail on

record — only that Milne ‘put out of action

another German machine-gun which was seriously

holding up the advance.’ His valour was rewarded

with a Victoria Cross but, killed in action later

in the day, he never knew it.*

Milne’s battalion, on the right of the

3rd Brigade front, suffered more heavily than

any other 1st Division unit, with twenty officers

(out of thirty) and over three hundred (nearly

a half) of the other ranks killed or wounded.

The only officer to come through unscathed**

was Lieutenant C.F.B. Jones, an Ontarian who,

like Jack Harris, had enlisted (in Calgary) in

response to Prime Minister Borden’s January 1916

call for half a million men. He had reached the

front in November 1916, and now wrote home

to report on his first major action.

Sharp on time, 5:30 am. Easter

Monday, there came one big crash,

the whole weight of our artillery

swept the Hun line and we walked

out following under our barrage.

It was a wonderful sight and I shall

never forget it. Dawn was just

breaking, the sky was bright with

Hun fireworks, his infantry

frantically sending up SOS to

his artillery, but he could do

little against our stuff.... The

noise was terrific, but above all

the din of the big guns could

be heard the rattle of the Hun

machine-guns as they endeavoured

to stop the rush of the Canadians.

Men dropped out here and there

but nothing could stop us, and we

reached our first objective in

record time.Here there was a pause

while our guns played on the Hun

back trenches, and here I ran across

young Archie Cornell, bright as

a button, still leading his men....

All day and until the next night,

we remained at our last objective

while other troops pased through us

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* Milne’s was the first of four VCs won by the 16th Battalion in the course of the war — the most of any Canadian unit.

** Jones would be wounded twice before the end of the war, however, and win a Military Cross at the Battle of Amiens, 8 August 1918, when he was severelywounded.


“Looking to either side one could see thousands of men, walking slowly but none the less certainly,into the German lines.” [LAC PA 1086]

“... the too impetuous pressed forward into the barrage, and some undoubtedly became casualties....” [LAC PA 1087]


and drove the Hun back. It was

beautifully worked and by the

afternoon we had taken prisoners

galore, officers and generals,

guns and all sorts of stuff....

We have had to pay for it, but

not too heavily.Poor Mac was killed

early in the fight.... Poor Archie

Cornell, the brightest little sport in

the battalion, was killed fifty yards

from the final objective.Campbell,

who played tennis in Calgary,

a friend of Sheffield’s, was killed

early in the day; Kirkham was

wounded.When the final objective

was reached, two of us [officers]

were left in our company — the

O[fficer] C[ommanding] and

myself. He had been wounded

twice but carried on until the next

morning, when he went back to

the [Casualty] Clearing Station,

and I assumed command of the

company — the only one left

without a scratch.

Jones then ‘spent the afternoon sleeping

in an officer’s dug-out lighted by electricity, and

on a comfortable bed that only a few hours

before a [German] commander had slept on.’

There is a fine ring of reality about that

admission. Nothing is more physically exhausting

than the emotions aroused by an imminent

prospect of death or mutilation; and every man

who trudged up Vimy Ridge that day had endured

hours of fearful waiting,even before he left the start

line. During the advance, as other men dropped

about him, his fears must surely have intensified a

hundred-fold, and if the whole truth were known

it is likely that a great many Canadians fell asleep

once the adrenalin had stopped flowing. (Others,

numbered among the ‘moppers-up’, took to

playing cards, as we shall see in due course.)

The 15th Battalion (48th Highlanders of

Canada) attacked in the centre of the divisional

front. Lieutenant Gordon Chisholm, from Toronto,

explained to his family that ‘we had been put

into the section of the line where we attacked

[i.e., raided] some time ago and had ample

time to study the ground before going over.’

A few minutes before the hour

I issued rum to the men and then

we waited....When our time came,

we climbed on the parapet and started

over. Looking to either side one could

see thousands of men walking slowly

but none the less certainly into the

German lines. Ahead of us our artillery

cleared the way. When we reached the

German lines we hardly recognized

them.What had once been trenches

were only mere sunken lines....

I had to take up a position

in a wood.The wood when I found

it consisted of a piece of ground

covered with stumps about a foot

high.There we stopped and commenced

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The ruined village of Farbus,totally destroyed by shellfire.[LAC PA 1084]

A German gun position just outside Farbus. [LAC PA 994]

German officers surrender, looking as if they cannot believe what has justhappened. [LAC PA 1032]


digging in. It was while running about

superintending operations that I ‘got

mine’.A machine gun opened up on us,

and as I was trying to get away from

it I stumbled on a bayonet and got a

nasty cut in the foot.... I had to run,

sore foot and all, as the ground was

being shelled. On reaching our old

trenches I was rather surprised to find

that I had a following: Germans

seemed to spring up out of the ground.

I counted up and found I had six to

guide, so I started them off down the

trench and directed them from behind.

With the Red line secure the 1st Brigade came

leapfrogging through, its 1st (Western Ontario)

Battalion on the extreme right of the Canadian

line.‘There was a little town on our left,’ wrote

Private J.H.Hapgood, from Simcoe,Ontario,whose

letter to friends somehow got into the august

columns of Britain’s most influential newspaper,

The Times.Hapgood was looking uphill, across the

divisional boundary, at the village of Thélus on

the 2nd Division’s front, which was — as has

already been pointed out — the key to the

1st Division’s success.

When we came up even with it

we had to stop for ten minutes while

our artillery razed that town. It took

them just ten minutes to put that town

clean out of sight, as they turned

every gun that was within range on

it.There were hundreds of shells put

into that town every second.

Gunner Ferguson, with the heavy artillery

some miles back and knowing nothing of

Hapgood’s involvement, recorded simply that

‘we had ten minutes on Thélus, switching

over to Farbus.’ With Thélus destroyed, Hapgood

and his comrades pressed forward again.

We kept on pushing ahead until

about 10 o’clock before we came to

the little bit of ground our Batt. had

to take.There we were held up by

a Fritzie bombing post.They were

more than throwing the bombs

at us. At last I caught sight of the

Germans through a low place in

their parapet, and at once opened

[up with] my [Lewis] gun at them.

I forgot to tell you that I was in

command of a section that day,

and had a gun all to myself.

I emptied about two pans [drums

of ammunition) and a half at them

and then I went to move to another

shell hole a little nearer to the Fritzies.

I just got up on top of the shell hole

when something hit me. I let go of the

machine-gun and fell back into the

mud. I could see nothing and felt awful

dizzy. I was sure from the amount of

blood that the best part of my head

was gone. I could feel the blood running

over my eyes into my nose and down

my neck.... In about five minutes one of

our fellows came over and bandaged

me up and I felt not too bad. In about

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German medics assist with the wounded. [LAC PA 1125]

Picking up the wounded at an advanced dressing station. [LAC PA 680]

Some tanks crossed the Germanfront line, but they soon boggeddown in the mud. [DND 0-2285]


fifteen minutes my pal came back shot

through both legs and together we

struck out for a dressing station. From

there I was carried on a stretcher by

some Fritzie prisoners to the ambulance....

The 1st Battalion was squeezed out of the

narrowing front at the Blue line while the

2nd (Eastern Ontario) and 3rd (Toronto) carried

on.To the 1st Division’s right, however, the

Third Army’s 51st (Highland) Division was not

doing nearly so well. Its neighbouring brigade

could not keep up with the Canadians (eventually

the Scots stopped five hundred metres short of the

final objective), so that the 3rd Battalion was

compelled to turn the front of its right-hand

company ninety degrees away from the axis of

advance in order to cover an exposed flank.

The 2nd Battalion side-stepped slightly to the

right, thinning its own front slightly to take up

a share of the 3rd’s, and then the brigade began

to dig in on the Brown line, in Farbus Wood.

The 2nd and 3rd Brigades,which had made the

initial assault, had suffered considerably more

casualties than the 1st, which had passed through

them on the Red line.The 2nd had lost (in round

figures) eleven hundred in killed, wounded and

missing, and the 3rd nearly a thousand, compared

with the four hundred and fifty incurred by

the 1st.Today these figures seem horrifying, but

an advance of four thousand metres at a cost of

twenty-five hundred casualties indicated a degree

of success greater by an order of magnitude

than any that had been achieved on the Western

Front, by any of the antagonists, since 1914.

THE 2nd DIVISION — ‘INDIVIDUAL

COURAGE AND INITIATIVE...’

Although it did not have quite so much

distance to cover as the 1st, it had seemed to the

planners that the 2nd Division might have

the hardest task of all. Divisional boundaries

had been set along a series of easily recognized

features, so that the possibility of troops straying

from their own axes of advance on to those

of their neighbours would be minimized.Thus the

2nd Division’s initial front of attack was narrower

than that of the 1st Division — about twelve

hundred metres, as against fifteen hundred — but

its front widened as it advanced, particularly

between the Red and Brown lines. If the initial

attack was to be launched by two brigades

in line (as it was), with the third to pass

through them on the Red line, then the

latter’s frontage would soon be more than

two thousand metres.

That was simply too much for one brigade,

but two were certainly needed for the initial

assault and the division only mustered three;

and so a British brigade — the 13th, detached

from the British 5th Division which had been put

at Byng’s disposal as a corps reserve — had

been assigned to join the 6th Brigade in the

second phase of the division’s assault. And

because the 2nd would have to deal with the

garrisons of the battered remnants of Les

Tilleuls and the ruins of Thélus and Farbus — the

latter on the Brown line, or final objective — it

was allocated all eight of the Mark I tanks placed

at Byng’s disposal.

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German machine-gunners fought valiantly, but in the end could not stem the assault. Canadians occupy a battered machine-gun nest on the crest of the ridge. [LAC PA 1101]

A high-velocity, low-trajectory field gun, suitable for anti-tank work, knocked out near Thélus. [LAC PA 976]


All eight of them bogged down in the Vimy

mud before they could get into action.Their

only value, if Captain R.J. Manion, medical officer

of the 21st (Eastern Ontario) Battalion — who

would win a Military Cross this day — is to be

believed,‘was that of drawing and localizing

the enemy fire to a certain extent, and so marking

out areas of danger that it were well to avoid.’

But, happily, the tanks were not needed.Things

went as well for the 2nd Division as they had

done for the 1st, despite the brave efforts of

enemy machine-gunners resisting to the bitter end.

A ‘series of acts of individual courage and

initiative’ prevented any serious checks to their

advance, as when the men of the 18th (Western

Ontario) Battalion’s C Company found themselves

enfiladed by machine-gun fire on the second line

of defences, just short of Les Tilleuls.

Men began to fall, hit by the unseeen

enemy.The others peered around in

the gloom [it was not yet fully light]

trying to discover the [machine-gun]

nest. Lance-Sergeant [Ellis] Sifton

saw it first....

Sifton ... rushed ahead, leaped

into the trench, charged into the crew,

overthrew the gun and turned

on the gunners with his bayonet.

More Germans charged down the trench

towards him, and Sifton (from Wallacetown,

Ontario) used his bayonet and rifle butt to hold

them off until his men could join him.The

fight was over, and the trench firmly in Canadian

hands, when ‘a dying German, one of Sifton’s

victims, rolled over to the edge of the trench,

picked up a rifle and took careful aim....’ Sifton,

like Milne, was awarded a posthumous VC.

The 21st (Eastern Ontario) Battalion, which

was assigned to take Les Tilleuls, lost a third

of its strength in doing so. On balance, however,

half of that loss was compensated for by a

twenty-two-year-old lieutenant, J.E. Johnson, who

(accompanied by an unidentified corporal)

came upon ‘a long winding staircase’ at Les

Tilleuls leading down to a large cave that

the enemy had turned into a company-sized

dug-out.‘They threw down a couple of Mills

bombs, drew their revolvers, and went down,

to be confronted in flickering candlelight

by one hundred and five German officers and

men, all armed.’ Bluffing that he had a large

force on the surface, Johnson and his

corporal disarmed them all, rounded up

a half-dozen more men to form an escort,

and then despatched them to the rear

as prisoners-of-war. His initiative would be

rewarded with a Military Cross.

The 31st (Alberta) Battalion took the

ruins of Thélus and offered yet another

account of the havoc wrought there by

the artillery.‘The damage to THELUS is

extraordinary. Buildings are demolished,

trenches obliterated and wire smashed

to atoms; there is hardly an inch of ground

but bears witness to the tremendous

effect of our guns.’

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A shell bursts in the streets of Vimy [Thélus?] [LAC PA 1289]

The official caption reads ‘Main Street,Vimy’, but this looks more like Thélus. Vimy was not as badly damaged as this.[LAC PA 1140]

Holding newly-won ground was often more difficult than taking it. Canadians dig in just behind the eastern rim of the crest. [LAC PA 1085]


The advance from the Blue to the Brown

line was effected by the 27th (Winnipeg) and

29th (Vancouver) Battalions, with two battalions

of the British 13th Brigade — the King’s

Own Scottish Borderers and the Royal West

Kents — on their left.The Canadians were

now over the low flattened crest of the ridge,

and so deep in the German positions that

they were becoming intimately involved with

the foremost batteries of German field

artillery. One opened fire on them at a range

of no more than fifty metres, according to

the British Official History.

Thereupon the front wave of

both battalions raised a cheer, charged

down the slope, and bayoneted or

captured the gunners. Continuing the

advance, the second-line trench

was crossed and the eastern edge of

the Bois de la Ville [just in front

of Farbus] was secured, 250 prisoners,

including the commander and staff

of the 3rd Bavarian Reserve Regiment,

being taken in various dug-outs on

the way.

At 11 a.m. the commander of the 79th Reserve

Division had issued orders for an ‘immediate’

counter-attack to re-capture Hill 135 by three

Bavarian battalions.The troops began to move

forward but a subordinate commander, trying

to cling to La Folie wood and knowing

nothing of the proposed counter-attack, ordered

those of them that reached his positions to

fill yawning holes in his defences along the

lower edge of the wood. Counter-orders

reached him too late: darkness was falling

before two or three companies had been

re-formed and were ready to move, and

then they were too few in numbers and

firepower to launch an effective effort.

Six hours or more after it was supposed to

start, this counter-attack broke down before

it could develop any momentum.

The 2nd Division’s total casualties were only

some thirty less than those of the 1st’s — and

again the heaviest losses were incurred by the

two brigades that began the attack. In the

final phase, the British 13th Brigade lost a hundred

and fifty men less than the Canadian 6th,

which, curiously, suffered a disproportionate

number of wounded to killed. Normally, the

ratio would be roughly three to one — as it

was among the other battalions of both the

1st and 2nd Divisions on Vimy Ridge — but in

the 6th Brigade on this occasion it was about

five to one.

3rd DIVISION

The 3rd Division attacked on a frontage

similar to that of the 2nd, but had rather less

than two-thirds the distance to go on its right

and less than half that on the left.The only

potentially significant obstacle it faced was La

Folie farm. It also enjoyed the advantage of

protected approaches through the two longest

tunnels of the front, Goodman (1,500 metres)

and Grange (1,100 metres), which ensured

fewer casualties during the approach phase

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Canadian machine-gunners ready themselves for a counter-attack that never came. [LAC PA 1017]

In some areas, the ground was so bad that badly-wounded men fell into shell holes and drowned. This soldier was lucky; hit in the leg or foot, his comradeshelp him make his way back to anadvanced dressing station. [DND DHist-15]

Billy Bishop, not yet the winner of a VC.For some obscure reason, a censor hadblacked out the serial number on the tailof his Nieuport fghter. [DND 0-1751]


and thus enabled its battalions to ‘shake

out’ into their attack formations with minimal

dislocation.

Three of the four Mounted Rifle battalions

in the 8th Brigade — the 1st, 2nd and 4th, with

the 3rd being assigned to mopping-up — swept

up the slope hard on the heels of the barrage,

giving enemy machine-gunners no chance to

come into action.The Germans had tunnels,

too, linking their forward positions with those

further back, and the 2nd CMR captured

over one hundred and fifty men huddled at

the eastern end of one,‘many of whom

were only half dressed.’

News that the ‘English’ were at the one

end of the tunnel led the German battalion

commander concerned,who had his headquarters

at the other (western) end, to try and withdraw.

No sooner had it been decided

to abandon the battalion headquarters

at the tunnel entrance than the first

English appeared 200 metres away and

brought a machine-gun into action

at the Ruhleben House.Pursued by the

fire of this troublesome gun, the

battalion commander, his staff, and

twenty men went back along the

communication trench, knee deep in

mud, towards the second-line positions;

but most of the staff and all the

men were killed or wounded before

reaching it.

This book began with the experiences

of Jack Harris, serving with the 4th CMR,

and it may be of some interest at this point

to present the recollections of an ordinary

German soldier in the trenches the CMRs

were attacking.The regimental history of

the 263rd Reserve Regiment reports that

‘only one man of the 1st Battalion ... returned

from the forward line on 9 April.’ He was ‘a

quiet, sober-thinking farmer from the Lüneburg

area’ who subsequently told his superiors

that ‘to begin with the attack made no progress

as the German rifle and machine-gun fire

was very effective.’

Especially machine-guns in

flanking positions had a great

effect and struck down rows of

Englishmen [but] the German

artillery barrage was directed on

to the enemy position and went

over the heads of the mass of the

British [Canadian] infantry

and did no harm to it.The enemy

artillery, n the other hand, according

to Hagemann’s statements, was

directed during the entire attack by

means of ‘Very Lights’ from observation

planes.As a result the fire was very

well placed and as the attack made

progress it was always just a little

orward of the ritish infantry.This

and the immensely heavy British

rifle and machine-gun fire caused

very heavy German casualties.

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Sbells fall near an advanced dressing station. [LAC PA 625]

The light railways were a boon for moving supplies forward and wounded (or dead) back. [LAC PA 1024]


The machine-gun in the proximity

of Hagemann, as well as its entire crew,

were put out of action by artillery fire.

As the men in the most forward lines

were gradually rendered unable to fight,

the opponent finally got into the first

trench. Moving from crater to crater, our

men withdrew to the second line, which

had been unoccupied and was now

defended by a mere few rifles.

In the end Hagemann did not

see any more unwounded men in his

neighbourhood, and since he had

been wounded three times and his

right arm was paralysed he was

no longer able to keep fighting.

Floating above the battle in his Niewport

fighter (and no doubt keeping a wary eye open

for the Red Baron), Captain William Avery

Bishop, MC,* concluded that ‘the men seemed

to wander across No-man’s-land, and into the

enemy trenches, as if the battle was a great bore

to them. From the air it looked as though they

did not realize they were at war and were taking

it all entirely too quietly.’

He might have gained a different impression

if he had been there on the ground (the 7th and

8th Brigades, which carried the 3rd Division’s

attack, took nearly a thousand casualties each,

about the same as the leading brigades of

the 1st and 2nd Divisions) but in truth the

battle was going unbelievably well by First

World War standards.The Princess Patricias,

who had switched their loyalties from the

British 27th Division to the 3rd Canadian

Division at the end of 1915,** exited from

Grange tunnel in the centre of the 7th Brigade

front, and started forward with their

regimental pipers playing the men ‘over

the top’ and then following on as

stretcher-bearers.

On their right marched the Royal Canadian

Regiment, the infantry component of Canada’s

pre-war Permanent Force.The RCR had been

exiled to Bermuda in 1914, instead of taking its

place in the First Contingent; but the losses

of Second Ypres, Festubert and Givenchy, had

brought it, too, to France.The Royals had

arrived in England in September 1915, and

crossed the Channel in early November,

before being assigned to the forming

3rd Division at the end of that year.

The Patricias soon found that ‘the ground

was very difficult but most of the obstacles

were created by the terrible efficiency of the

British and Canadian siege batteries’, according

to their regimental historian.There were

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* Who would end the war as Major Bishop,VC, DSO and Bar, MC, DFC, Croix de Guerre avec Palme,credited with 72 aerial victories as the British Empire’s second-highest scoring ‘ace’.

** When the PPCLI had been formed nearly all of therecruits had been born in the British Isles, but casualtieshad been replaced with native-born Canadians.The27th Division had been ordered to Salonika, and ‘remarkably the decision seems to have been left to the Regiment’ as to whether it should shift to another British formation or join the 3rd Division.


The main targets for heavy artillery were the enemy’s gun positions. Theseare dummy German guns, carriageswith tree trunks or branches for barrels,but their undamaged condition suggests that no one was fooled by them. [LAC PA 1220]

“For you, the war is over.” Few of these prisoners look unhappy as they pass through a knocked-about French village.[LAC PA 1142]

Men digging mines under the enemy’s positions needed air, that had to be pumpeddown by hand in many cases. [LAC PA 306]


occasional machine-gun posts to be bombed

and grenaded, but ‘it is a paradox, disconcerting

to the historian, that complete successes make

less history (in the case of small units, at least)

than does failure or partial achievement.’

Having taken their objectives, however, they

suffered ‘a gruelling enfilade and almost a

reverse fire’ from Hill 145, which overlooked

the whole divisional front. Even worse was the

German artillery fire that began to fall on

them during the afternoon, and ‘the list of

killed and wounded, comparatively so trifling

during the assault, mounted alarmingly.’

Here, where the Canadians had started

much closer to the ridge, its slopes were

steeper and its crest narrower, so that there

was no need for a second wave of infantry

to pass through and carry the attack forward,

as had been the case further south. All three

assault battalions* of the 7th Brigade reached

their final objectives, on the edge of La Folie

Wood, and consolidated there. Private William

Breckinridge of the 42nd Battalion (Royal

Highlanders of Canada), on the Patricias’ left

(and the extreme left of both the brigade

and divisional front), remembered the sight

as he and his comrades crested the ridge.

‘In the valley before us we could see the

Germans withdrawing their guns.We opened

up on them with our Lewis gun, but they

were beyond our range and the fire was

ineffective.’

He and his comrades might have done better

to turn their attention to their left — the one

part of the front where things were not going

quite according to plan.

THE 4TH DIVISION

Indeed there would be all sorts of difficulties

to be overcome in taking and securing Hill 145,

and the task would not be completed in one day.

But before outlining some of the perils endured

and predicaments overcome by the men of the

4th Division, we might consider the fight for it

from an enemy perspective.This transparently

honest account by a private soldier of the

262nd Reserve Regiment, a Berliner by the name

of Otto Schröder, who had spent the night on

sentry duty somewhere on the northern slopes

of the hill — his location cannot now be

established with certainty — illustrates perfectly

the peculiar blend of terror and incongruity

that marks all battlefields.

... In the morning, tired and black

from night duty, we lay down with

the words: ‘Now let us pull the blankets

over our heads and sleep.’ Suddenly

there was heavy drumfire. The

day-sentries shouted: ‘Outside! the

British are coming!’

...While I was handing out

hand grenades, in the trench the

shooting had already started.

The English — they were Canadian

troops — had broken through

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* The fourth — 22nd — battalion was assigned to mop-up behind the advance on this occasion.


German officers pose for a photograph outside the deep dug-out on Vimy Ridge that served as their company headquarters before and during the battle. [LAC C55256]

A young soldier inspects a German strongpoint captured by D Company of the 4th Battalion, CEF, who had already painted their claim on the gun shield. [LAC PA 1076]


on our left, in the sector of the

3rd Bavarian Reserve Regiment, and,

advancing from the road, were

already rolling up our position. My

corporal told me to go down into

the dug-out and fetch the box with the

egg-shaped grenades.... But on the

way back, when I had gone up half

of the thirty-eight rungs, the

corporal suddenly shouted: ‘Come

up, to the left the British have

already passed the trench.’ So I

dropped the grenades back into

the dug-out and went up into

the trench. ...I noted that I was

alone ... only a dead comrade

was lying on the edge, in a grotesque

way.... his name I had forgotten.

Then I ventured beyond the edge

of the trench, and everywhere, left

and right and forward, I saw

only Britishers,* who, in their ‘straw

hats’ [i.e., steel helmets] looked as if

they were hare-hunting. As I found out

later, they had drunk much liquor.

Now I had to act, but how? I pulled

the dead soldier into the trench and

lay down beside him, as if dead too.

Meanwhile the assault waves were

passing over us.This was going on for

quite a time. Suddenly a strapping big

Canadian appeared and curiously stuck

his fixed bayonet into my dead comrade.

This was the worst moment of my life. I

moved and the Tommy shouted: ‘Come on.’

With that I climbed out of the hole

(silently saying good bye to my dead

comrade). Immediately he held his

bayonet against my chest and said: You

blässiert, no?’ [Are you wounded?].*

I did not know what he meant, and

shrugged my shoulders. Then, as

suddenly as he had come, he disappeared.

Again I was all alone. I ran in the

direction of die Giesslerhöhe [the

Pimple], towards the positions of the

261st Regiment.While I was passing

some fieldwork [trench or dugout] an

Englishman jumped up and fired at

me. I was hit in the right forearm. After

that, while I was wandering around

in a wounded state, suddenly my pal

Cordes jumped out from some cover

where he had managed to hide unhurt.

How glad I was to meet a good comrade

in the midst of all the enemy can only

be appreciated by one who has had the

same experience.

We took each other by the hand and

ran around aimlessly among the dead,

who had been mowed down here by

machine-guns. There were our own

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* Apparently this was a francophone Canadian, trying to ‘Germanize’ the verb blesser- to wound.* Another synonym for Canadians.


It was a struggle to bring up the guns onto the crest of the ridge after the battle. [LAC PA 1015]

Laying track across the top of the ridge, so that ammunitionand food could be brought forward. [LAC PA 1215]

Bringing up ammunition on mule-drawn tram cars once the track was complete. [LAC PA 1135]


soldiers and also some British.We found

a dug-out and sat down on the stair

for protection from the heavy fire on the

ridge, for the German artillery had

begun to fire on it with heavy guns.

Now the big question was: ‘Where

are we? In our own positions or in those

of the enemy?’ My friend thought we

were in the enemy positions; I thought

we were in our own. So I said: ‘We

stay put until our division makes a

counter-attack, and then we are saved.’

While we were discussing this, a door

opened in [the entrance to] a nearby

dug-out and a Canadian stepped out.

We were astonished to see that in this

dug-out, war or no war, instead of

participating in the assault, six Britishers

were contentedly playing a game of

cards.At first they paid no attention

to us and kept on playing.When the

game was over, a British medical orderly

came over and said to me: ‘Hallo, Fritz,

are you wounded?’Then he bandaged

me and gave me something to eat

and drink.

Gradually more and more members

of my regiment showed up. After I had

regained some strength, the Englishman

took me by the hand and took me to

the main dressing-station, where I was

examined by a doctor. After that a Tommy

took me to the nearest village.... I was

then taken to a big camp behind the

front, where I found several comrades,

including my former company

commander, Lieutenant Schultz.

THE CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE —

12th BRIGADE

It seems likely that Otto Schröder had faced

some part of the attack of Brigadier-General

James MacBrien’s 12th Brigade, responsible

for taking the lower north-western slopes of

Hill 145, facing — and overlooked by — the

Pimple. From a Canadian perspective, however,

the battle for Hill 145 did not go quite as well

as Schröder’s narrative might suggest.

When the attack began, the Pimple was

blanketed by smoke and gas delivered by

Canadian and British artillery, and the German

troops there were further stunned by the

detonation of two large mines under their

positions.‘Leaning on the barrage’, Montreal’s

73rd Battalion (Royal Highlanders) reached the

Brown line within ten minutes,‘with practically

no opposition’ and very few casualties.

By 6 a.m.‘consolidation was in full swing’

and by mid-morning the Montrealers had built

up a strong defensive position looking across

part of the saddle that linked Hill 145 to the

Pimple. But in retrospect it can be argued that

they ought to have been ordered to go further.

The ‘firm flank’ that they provided seems to

have been too short, and perhaps they should

have been given as their objective some feature

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Canadian “highlanders” work withpick and shovel to build a road overshell-torn ground. [LAC PA 686]

Major-General Arthur Currie presenting a regimental colour to the 47th Battalion.Why would the 1st Division’s commanderpresent colours to a 4th Division unit?Because the 47th had been raised in BritishColumbia, and Currie was a BritishColumbian, too. [DND PMR 86-485]


over the crest of the ridge — or, at the very least,

that German strongpoint which lay a short

distance ahead, just on the flank of the unfortunate

72nd Battalion.

Vancouver’s 72nd Battalion (Seaforth

Highlanders) was supposed to reach the south-west

corner of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, beyond the crest

of the ridge. However, as the Highlanders pushed

along the Brown line — as the map indicates, it

angled sharply back on their front — things began

to become unstuck.The ground in front of them,‘a

mass of shell holes filled with water’, was worse

than that which they had just crossed. Struggling

through the mud, and under fire from the

strongpoint in front of the 73rd as well as the

Pimple and Hill 145, their advance slowed

and finally stuttered to a halt significantly short

of their objective.

One of the junior officers, Lieutenant D.O.

Vicars, moved around to the left, towards that

hard-hitting strongpoint that lay in front of the

73rd’s position, and ‘with a couple of men,

the remains of his platoon, attacked a party of

50 of the enemy ... and drove them into our

barrage, capturing 8 prisoners and killing many

of the remainder.The rest fled overland

towards Givenchy.’ That might have opened the

way for the rest of the Seaforths to resume

their advance — and Vicars was decorated with

the Distinguished Service Order (the ‘poor man’s

VC’ when awarded to a subaltern) in recognition

of his feat — but they simply could not do so.

They had taken too many casualties. Stuck in

the mud, with the threat of an open flank on their

left, the Vancouver men lurched to a reluctant

halt on the Black line, some three hundred metres

short of Givenchy-en-Gohelle.

The 38th (Ottawa) Battalion, on the 72nd’s

right and halfway up the slope of Hill 145,

(and, most probably, facing the German defences

where Otto Schröder had begun his day) found

the going equally hard.The cut-up ground it had

to cross made it difficult for the heavily-laden

attackers to keep up with the barrage, and ‘many

men fell wounded, into shell holes full of

water and were drowned.’ Although the battalion

reported that it had taken all of its objectives

just fifty minutes after the attack began, in

fact the assault companies had missed, and

bypassed, three large craters full of Germans.

Moreover, slowed down by the mud, they had

fallen too far behind the barrage and left the

enemy time to man his trenches. Soon they

were under fire from all directions and their

battle broke down into a number of small,

unconnected, and very fierce and bitter fights.

Sometime after 7 a.m. Captain T.W. MacDowell,

DSO, commanding A Company, was involved in

a series of these.

The mud is very bad [he reported

to Battalion HQ] and our machine

guns are filled with mud. I have about

15 men near here and can see

others around and am getting them

in here slowly. Could ‘D’ Company

come up in support if they have

stopped in the front line?

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The runner with your message for

‘A’ Company has just come in and says

he cannot find any of the Company

officers. I don’t know where my Officers or

men are but am getting them together.

There is not an N[on] C[ommissioned]

O[fficer] here. I have one machine

gunner here but he has lost his cocking

piece off the gun and the gun is covered

with mud.The men’s rifles are a mass of

mud, but they are cleaning them. My

two runners and I came to what I had

selected previously as my Company

H[ead]Q[uarters].We chucked a few bombs

down and then came down [here].

The dug-out is 75 feet down and is

very large.We explored it and sent out

75 Prisoners and two Officers.This is not

exaggerated as I counted them myself.

We had to send them out in batches

of 12, so they could not see how few we

were. I am afraid few of them got back

as I caught one [Ger]man shooting one

of our men after he had given himself

up. He did not last long — and so I

am afraid we could not take any back

except a few who were good dodgers,

as the men chased them back with rifle

shots.The dugout is a very large one

and will hold a couple of hundred....

I cannot give an estimate of our

casualties but believe they are severe.

Will send back word as soon as possible.

There is a field of fire of 400 yards or

more and if there were a couple of

Brigade machine-guns [here] they could

keep them [the Germans] back easily

as the ground is almost impassable.

Horrible mess.There are lots of dead

Bosche and he evidently held [out] well.

I can see 72nd men on our left.

The 78th have gone through after we

reached here.The barrage was good

but the men did not keep close to it

enough and held back....

MacDowell strengthened his position, and

issued three more reports during the course of

the day. At 10:30 he informed his commanding

officer that he had:

... been along the line.The dugout we

occupy is at the corner of CYPRUS and

BABY. It has three entrances well distant

from each other, and will hold easily

250 men at the very least. A tunnel leads

down towards our lines, which I did not

explore....There are only 15 men with us, of

whom two are stretcher bearers.The rifles

are one mass of mud. I have two Lewis

Guns and ... four pans [of ammunition].

Both guns are out of action on account

of the mud.We have a very few bombs

as we had to bomb several dug-outs.

The 78th I have no trace of, but there

are two German machine-guns just in front

of us.They are firing constantly. Snipers

are also busy. We cannot locate them as yet.

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The ground is practically impassable.His

aeroplanes came over and saw a few of

my men at [the] dug-out entrance, and

now we are getting his heavies from our

right and his left. I have no NCOs whatever,

and unless I get a few more men with

serviceable rifles, I hate to admit it, but we

may be driven out.Three of the men are

wounded as it is, so I might as well tell you

the facts of the case....There are a lot of

wounded out in front of here as I can see

by the rifles stuck up.*

MacDowell held on, — he would be awarded

a Victoria Cross for his valour and leadership this

day — and at mid-afternoon politely suggested to

his commanding officer that ‘you take it up with

Brigade that this place be occupied in strength.’

... there is a great field of fire to the

North and West as well as to the East.This,

you see, makes it a very strong supporting

post to our left flank, and I would strongly

recommend that it be occupied by

Brigade machine-guns. I cannot locate

them, as I have no NCOs to leave in

charge here to look for them myself.

It is quite alright for anyone to come

up here.They are firing at us all the time

with their heavy guns ... but I have no

casualties to report since coming in except

being half scared to death myself by a

big brute [of a shell dropping nearby].

I cannot impress on you too much the

strength of this position and [the] value

of it as a strong supporting point to the

left flank, by which they [the enemy] will

undoubtedly make their counter-attack.

In fact, it was on the right, closest to the

summit, where the main trouble lay.The

11th Brigade, assigned to take the summit and the

higher southern slopes, was having its difficulties,

as we shall see; but so were the Winnipeggers

of the 78th Battalion, who, as MacDowell had

reported, had ‘gone through’ his position on their

way to take and secure the German second

position, over the crest of the ridge. Few of them

ever got there; and fewer still returned.‘During

their advance,’ the brigade commander noted:

... they suffered very severely from

M[achine]-G[un] fire from both flanks and

also from BANFF trench.Although not

known at first, the fact was subsequently

established that portions of [the

battalion] reached CYCLIST trench

and were immediately counter-attacked

by overwhelming numbers from the

dugouts in rear....The enemy evidently

got the better of this local encounter

as at 8:30 a.m. (just after MacDowell

made his first report] about 200 of them

counter-attacked the 1st objective of

the 78th Battalion....

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* It was customary for advancing troops, passing awounded man, to take his rifle (with fixed bayonet)and stick the bayonet in the ground, so that the riflebutt provided a marker for stretcher-bearers followingup the attack.


Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden inspects his cousin’s 85th (Nova Scotia Highlanders) Battalion during his visit to France in March 1917. [LAC PA 871]

Brigadier-General Victor Odlum, whose 11th Brigade was to have taken Hill 145 in the initial attack. [LAC PA 2117]


No wonder the 78th disappeared from

Captain MacDowell’s view — and we can figure

out who the wounded were in front of him.

Moreover, by beating the Winnipeggers back the

enemy was able to remain in his shell holes

on the forward slope until early evening, so that

with the Pimple and the summit of the hill

still in German hands they could fire into the

12th Brigade’s new positions from both flanks

as well as from directly in front.

The brigade’s losses, by the end of the battle,

would total 65 per cent of those ‘who took part in

the actual assault.’ Hardest hit was the 72nd, in full

view of the enemy on the Pimple (76 per cent),

and the hapless 78th, shot at from every direction.

But it was from Hill 145 that the Winnipeggers

were punished most heavily — because Victor

Odlum’s 11th Brigade was failing to do the job

asked of it.

THE 11th BRIGADE — ‘AS WARLIKE

AS RABBITS....’

No one in the 11th Brigade had anticipated

that they would have an easy time. Although

they did not have so far to go as 1st, 2nd, and

3rd Divisions, the slope in front of them was

steepest, and from previous raids and aerial

reconnaissance it was clear that the enemy’s

defences here were the strongest.There were

four trench lines to be taken before any attacking

force reached the summit of Hill 145, and at

least two more on the reverse slope that had to

be taken for all of the hill to come under

Canadian control.

Although these defences had been heavily

shelled in the preliminary bombardment, the

enemy’s dug-outs were particularly deep and

strong. Moreover, the steep ground, unbelievably

pockmarked with craters and shell holes and

a morass of mud and water, made it too difficult

for the heavily-laden infantry to keep up with

the barrage. Consequently, most of the defenders

remained safely below ground until the

Canadians approached, but were then able

to surface in time to fight them off. Each

trench line, in short, meant a major struggle

and substantial casualties.

The right flank, bordering on the

3rd Division’s front, was allocated to the

102nd (North British Columbian) Battalion.

Going over the top ‘in perfect formation,’

the 102nd reported the first two lines of

trenches taken at 6 a.m., and the third twenty

minutes later. The battalion then dug in against

the expected counter-attack (which did not

materialize), but came under such intense and

constant fire from Hill 145 that by about 9 a.m.

every officer had been hit. One of the company

sergeant-majors took command, however, and

the northerners held their ground.

The 54th (Kootenay) Battalion was to have

passed through their fellow provincials and

taken the crest of the ridge immediately south

of Hill 145 — where they, too, were to dig in.

A few reached the top, but ‘facing strenuous

opposition ... on the extreme left’ — the summit

of the hill — ‘persistent sniping from points in

rear of our position’, and also worried by enemy

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attempts ‘to work around our left flank’, the

54th then withdrew down the slope a little way

and joined the 102nd where it was dug in.

There was no further withdrawal here, but

as E.L.M. Burns, the brigade signals officer, points

out, there was also no great interest in going

forward again.‘From the ruined communication

trench,’ he tells us in General Mud:

I got back to the old German front line,

which I had left about an hour before.

I found eight or ten men — some of my

party and some infantrymen — sitting

on their backsides with no idea of what

the immediate future was to bring forth,

but quite cheerful, on the whole, in this

comparative safety. Two or three of

them had rifles. A Lewis gunner, a lance

corporal, arrived just then, his gun

covered with mud and out of action.

I told him to clean it, set some of

the men to collecting German bombs

and posted a sentry.

...I peered over the parapet

cautiously, and saw two or three

Germans standing waist high in

[a] trench ... not more than 150 yards

away. As I looked at the Germans,

behaving as if they were at a rabbit

shoot, and the men around me,

who seemed to be about as warlike

as rabbits, I grew rather angry and

asked one gaping ... private what he

thought he had a rifle for.

Progress on the right was slow because, for

a time and in part, the centre had practically

collapsed.The 87th Battalion (Canadian Grenadier

Guards) were in the first wave but for some

reason — the likeliest being that the Guards’

commanding officer wanted to use it as a first-aid

station and battalion headquarters later on — a

section of enemy trench barely a hundred metres in

front of them had been left untouched by the

artillery bombardment. Subsequently, the company

assaulting it was virtually wiped out in just

six minutes, and ‘sixty per cent of its strength lay

dead on the ground.’ It was not a good beginning,

delaying the other guardsmen so that they lost the

barrage, and those who tried to continue the

advance were cut down by German machine-

gunners firing from positions of relative safety.

Moreover, their regimental history complains:

... the benefit of practice over tapes, and

the intimate knowledge of the defences

and of the roles laid down for platoons and

companies, was rendered quite useless

in the first ten minutes.The machine gun

and rifle fire was so intense that cohesion

of companies, platoons and even sections

was irecoverably lost: thus it was that those

individuals who reached the opposing

trenches joined with chance comrades

to continue the fight.

The 75th (Mississauga) Battalion, who

should have followed the 87th, were

completely unnerved by what they saw

happening ahead of them. Many did

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not move out of their trenches at all; others,

who advanced a little,‘scattered [and]

did not maintain cohesion. Elements ... were

later found all over the brigade area.’ With

the collapse of the 75th and ‘the defection’

(as the 54th and 102nd Battalions saw

it) of the 87th, the Germans still held a

bulge in the Canadian line which left

the British Columbians with open flanks

and allowed the enemy to fire into the

rear of the 12th Brigade.

The remnants of the 87th redeemed

themselves somewhat in the early afternoon.

Having rallied their men, the surviving

officers formed ad hoc bombing parties and,

one by one, knocked out the machine-gun

nests and strongpoints blocking their advance.

They disappeared ‘in a veil of smoke and

fumes,’ the colonel commanding the German

261st Reserve Regiment recalled,‘while

the fiery flashes of grenades and mines

illuminated the battlefield.’ But the Grenadiers,

now a spent force, did not reach the summit.

THE FINAL EFFORT

It was time, therefore, to call on the reserves:

the 46th (South Saskatchewan) and 47th (British

Columbia) Battalions from the 10th Brigade,

and the 85th (Nova Scotia Highlanders) of the

12th Brigade. On the 10th Brigade front:

The objectives of... the 46th Battn.

were craters 1, 2, and 3, and to establish

touch with 11 Bde on the Right...

This advance was carried out splendidly.

About 150 of the enemy were encountered

in the vicinity of No 3 Crater and were

dispersed, a machine gun and several

prisoners being taken....

The losses ... in this advance were

not heavy, and the whole situation was

cleared up.

For those taking part, it had been almost too

easy if the mud was discounted.‘We went through

a long tunnel,’a private in B Company remembered:

... deployed, and struggled through

the mud without a supporting barrage,

trying to avoid water-filled shell holes as

best we could.We faced machine gun fire

and scattered overhead shrapnel, but my

section made it to the far lip of a

gigantic crater which was our objective....

We had a shorter distance to travel

than some of our boys, and looking to

our right we could see our line of

troops moving forward with little groups

of Germans working towards the rear

by short dashes from shell hole to shell

hole.We blazed away at them.

The 47th also gained some ground, but their

success turned on the performance of the 85th

(Nova Scotia Highlanders) Battalion. In the heyday

of Sam Hughes, the 85th had been recruited

and sent to England with the intention that it

should form part of a Canadian Highland Brigade.

The heavy casualties incurred on the Somme,

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however, had led to the disbandment of

three of the four battalions concerned, to

provide reinforcements for battalions

already in the field, the exception being

the 85th — perhaps because it was

commanded by Prime Minister Borden’s

cousin, Lieutenant-Colonel A.H. Borden.

The Highlanders had been sent to

France intact in the spring of 1917, with the

intention that they would eventually replace

the 73rd Battalion in the 4th Division’s

12th Brigade.* However, when the attack was

planned (and even when it was launched)

they were still far from fully trained, and no

one in the Corps regarded the 85th as a

combat unit. At Vimy it was supposed to serve

as a labour battalion, assigned to such ‘pick

and shovel’ duties as might be needed, and the

bringing forward of ammunition and other

supplies, in order to save the fighting troops

those burdens. (That, it will be remembered,

was one of the lessons that Arthur Currie had

brought back from Verdun.)

Now, as the attacks on Hill 145 faltered time

and again, the untested men of the 85th were

ordered to lay down their shovels and pick up

their rifles. Zero hour for their assault on the

upper slope of the north-western side of Hill 145

was set for 6 p.m.

An artillery bombardment — always the first

and last resort of First World War commanders —

had been laid on; but at the last moment, seeing

how close his start-line was to the German

positions (and, wisely, not entirely trusting the

gunners!) Borden cancelled it. News of the

cancellation did not reach the two assault

companies, however, and they were consequently

shocked and dismayed when, at the appointed

second, all was silence.

They attacked nevertheless, firing as they

went, and by about seven o’clock had secured

at least some of the flattish summit and, in

places,“passed over to the other side” in more

senses than the religious one.Before the fight was

done the 85th would have had fifty-six officers

and men killed outright and almost three hundred

wounded,‘many of whom afterwards died’.**

But even though they were eventually supported

by men of the 75th and 87th, and despite the

efforts of the 46th and 47th Battalions on their

flanks, by the end of the day Hill 145 had not

been cleared of the enemy.

Brigadier-General Odlum certainly knew that

his task had not been completed when he went

forward to observe things very early next morning.

‘As I got up on the top ... I could see that we

had not got over; we were bent back on the top.

There were Germans still up there....’

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* With seven battalions at the front recruited primarilyfrom the Montreal area, it had been decided by theDepartment of Militia that Montreal was dangerouslyover-represented in the Canadian Corps,and two battalionsraised in the city, the 60th and the 73rd should be disbanded and replaced by units raised elsewhere.

** With no antibiotics and much less sophisticated surgery,a much higher proportion of First World War woundedsubsequently died of their wounds than was the casewith those wounded in the Second World War and subsequent conflicts.


CHAPTER IV


CHAPTER IV

THE END OF THE BATTLE

At 6 p.m. on Easter Monday, von

Falkenhausen’s staff ordered a reserve

battalion of Bavarian infantry to recover

the summit of Hill 145. It was midnight,

however, before it reached its start-line on

the Pimple, and when the men started forward

many of them lost direction — perhaps

deliberately, perhaps accidentally — while

others found it impossible to slog through

the mud and retain any kind of cohesion.

Some lost their field boots in the mire and

made their way back to the Pimple in their

socks, or with bare feet; and those few who

eventually crossed the saddle and got close

to the Canadian outposts were dispersed by

the fire of a single machine-gun. A second

attack, just before dawn, met with no more

success.

But if the Germans could not recover the

ground they had lost, the Canadians were also

unable to crown their victory of the 9th by

securing all of the upper slopes of the summit

that day. In places, it seems, they were over

the crest (which was not a sharp one) but they

were certainly not yet where they wanted to

be — in full control of the steep eastern slope

that dropped down to La Folie Wood. All

through the night, and through the morning

hours of the 10th, artillery fire was directed

upon the German positions there, and on their

likely avenues of supply and reinforcement.

HILL 145 — SECOND EFFORT

General Watson had earmarked his reserve

brigade to assault and take the Pimple on

the morning of the 10th. But now the Pimple

must wait; instead, he ordered the brigade

to complete the capture of Hill 145, and the

44th (Manitoba) and 50th (Calgary) Battalions

were sent forward together, the former on

the right. Before they could launch an attack,

however, an accompanying barrage had to

be arranged, its rate of movement co-ordinated

with that of the infantrymen, and timings

agreed among all concerned.

It was mid-afternoon before everything was

ready.The Pimple was again covered with

smoke and gas to some effect, but not enough

to entirely screen the attack or neutralize its

garrison.The 44th Battalion, on the right, was

masked to some extent by the summit and

not much bothered by fire from that direction.

A most beautiful barrage opened

up and we looked out to our left and

saw the 50th ... going over the top, just

like in the book. It wasn’t half-an-hour

after that my commander came running

along and said “Look, we’ve got to get

over the top of this hill.“ I said “When

do we go?” He said “Right Now.“ Well,

right now ... we went....

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We bounced over, from shell hole

to shell hole, in and out, and up and

down, and finally we got over to the

bottom [eastern foot] of the Ridge

without any opposition but we did

run into a bunch of dugouts in

the side of the hill, and there were

all these Germans.They thought the

battle was over, apparently, because

they were just sitting around in the

entrance to their shelter. So I banged

off a couple of pistol shots, and that

wakened them up and they all came

out with their hands up and were

willing to quit. But that wasn’t the

finish, for-pretty soon the Germans

that had gone over into the flat started

to shoot at us, and they were getting

a few, because we didn’t have much

shelter. We were on the down side

of the hill. We did stick it, then that

night we were relieved [by the 47th]

and moved off towards the bottom

of the PIMPLE for our next show....

The 50th, more exposed to the fire from

the Pimple, had a much more difficult time.

German machine-guns, manned as gallantly and

determinedly as ever, raked the battalion,

causing heavy casualties.With the fighting line

also thinned by the need to struggle through

the remnants of wire obstacles and wrecked

concrete machine-gun posts, not to mention

the fatigue quickly brought on by struggling

through the mud, one particular outpost

could not be mastered by the men of A Company.

B Company arrived to reinforce the advance,

another attack was organized, and again the

Canadians were stopped in their tracks.

It was then that 42-year-old John George

Pattison, a British-born engineer from Calgary

when he had enlisted, (and who already had

a son serving in the CEF) won the 4th Division’s

second Vimy VC.

He advanced single-handed towards

the machine-gun post in a series of

short, rapid dashes, taking cover on

the way in available shell holes while

deciding on his next move. In a few

moments he had reached a shell hole

within thirty yards of the vital strong-

point. He stood up in full view of the

machine-gunners and, under tbeir

point-blank fire, threw three bombs

with such good aim that the guns

were put out of action and the crews

temporarily demoralized.

This was Pattison’s opportunity and

he took it without hesitation. As his last

bomb exploded amidst the Germans,

he rushed across the intervening space

and in a moment was using his bayonet

upon the unhappy enemy. He had killed

them all before his companions had

caught him up.

When all the planning has been done to

perfection, and every ‘loose end’ tied up,

success (or failure) in battle often hinges on

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Shrapnel shells burst over Canadians consolidating their new-won positions on the top of the ridge. [LAC PA 1131]

A concrete machine-gun nest like that knockedout single-handedly by John Pattison, VC. [LAC PA 882]


the actions of one man, or perhaps one group

of half a dozen men. Pattison’s single-handed

thrust broke the stalemate on the north slopes

of Hill 145, and within half an hour all the

Canadians’ objectives had been taken. But

although Pattison subsequently learned that

he had been recommended for a VC, he never

had the privilege of wearing it. He was killed

in action, in front of Lens, two months later.*

Now that the 10th Brigade was on the

Brown line beyond Hill 145, the battle for

Vimy Ridge was over.With the enemy now

looking down on them, the plain under the

ridge was totally indefensible and the Germans

began to pull back to positions three or

four kilometres away. On the western, or reverse,

slope of their new positions, and on the top

of the ridge, on ground that the German army

had held against all comers for more than

two years, thousands of men were soon working

with pick and shovel.Their task was to build

plank roads through the mud, so that artillery,

ammunition, water and hot meals, and

all the paraphernalia that the infantry had

discarded before the attack began, could

be brought up to emplacements just behind

the crest (as viewed from the Douai plain)

in perfect safety.

THE PIMPLE — ‘NOT ESSENTIAL

IN THE FIRST INSTANCE....’

There was still the matter of the Pimple.

Originally, First Army plans had called for I

(British) Corps to take it simultaneously with

the Canadian Corps attack on the ridge proper,

but the British had subsequently argued that

they did not have the necessary manpower

available to play their part. Responsibility for it

had then been handed to the Canadians —

specifically to the 4th Division — with Sir Henry

Horne assuring Byng and Watson that, since

‘the capture of the PIMPLE ... was not essential

in the first instance to the success of operations

further south’, where Hill 145 dominated the

battlefield, it could safely be left alone until the

rest of the ridge had been taken.

That did not sit well with General Watson,who

probably felt that his manpower was stretched

just as thinly as that of his British neighbours.

Moreover, although Horne was technically correct

about the relationship between the Pimple and

Hill 145, as long as the enemy held the former

(despite any masking with smoke or attempted

neutralization with gas) Watson felt quite sure that

some of his men assaulting the latter would be

subjected to heavy enfilading fire.Total suppression

of such a strong, well-developed position by

artillery alone was not a practicable operation

of war.

He had made his dissatisfaction known —

well known — to his superiors. All that did was

win him assurances that the artillery would

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* Apparently his son, who shortly afterwards came to the44th Battalion, was permitted by his commanding officerto wear the ribbon of his father’s medal over his rightbreast, instead of the regulation left. King’s (or Queen’s)Regulations have never authorized a son wearing hisfather’s medals while in uniform, but on the basis of thePattison case, widely reported at the time, it has becomea not uncommon misconception among Canadians thatit is (or was) allowed.


“Thousands of men were soon workingwith pick and shovel.” [DND 0-808]

Building a plank road through the mud. [LAC PA 1226]


make every effort to neutralize it.The gunners

had, indeed, done their best, although it seems

likely that the less-than-total success on the

9th had been due, in part, to fire from the Pimple.

And fire from it may have caused a significant

proportion of the casualties incurred on the

10th in completing the conquest of Hill 145.

It seems likely that if the Pimple had simply

been ignored sooner or later the enemy would

have withdrawn. Although he had constructed

deep trenches and well protected dug-outs,

relieving or re-supplying the garrison would have

been very expensive in German lives as long as

the Canadians held the greater height of Hill 145.

And it would have been entirely at odds with

the new defensive doctrine which emphasized,

as it did, human economy.

Apparently, however, neither Byng nor Watson

questioned their orders to take the Pimple,

perhaps because, in the short term, it was an

obvious jumping-off point for any German

attempt to re-take Hill 145 — something the

enemy still seemed anxious to do. During

the lull of 11 April the German commander

had sent up to it a fresh and élite formation

specializing in the counter-attack rôle, the

5th Grenadier Regiment of the 4th Prussian

Guard Division. Here was a more formidable

objective than ever.

In the preparatory phase of the Vimy

operation, the 44th and 50th Battalions had

been trained specifically for an attack on

the Pimple. In the event, as we have just seen,

it had been necessary to divert them from that

assignment in order to complete the conquest of

Hill 145; and that struggle, on the afternoon of

the 10th, had cost both battalions, but particularly

the 50th, significant numbers of fighting men.

Nevertheless, those two units were still the best

qualified to assault their original objectives and

now they were ordered to do so.To compensate

for their earlier losses on Hill 145, they were

joined by two companies of the 46th (South

Saskatchewan) Battalion, while the 47th (British

Columbia) Battalion was assigned as reserve.

The attack would be launched in the

pre-dawn darkness, at 5 a.m. on the 12th, along

a front of nine hundred metres with artillery

and field gun support proportionately exceeding

that employed on the 9th. Having moved back

to their forming-up points, as originally planned,

the 44th and 50th would be carrying out

essentially the same attack they had been

rehearsing earlier, while the two additional

companies of the 46th Battalion would fill

in on their left, and, indeed, on the extreme

left of the Canadian Corps front.

They did have one advantage that would

have been lacking if the attack on the Pimple

had been synchronized with that on Hill 145.

Twenty-five metres lower than the latter, their

objective could now be partially overlooked

by the Canadians entrenched on the northern

face of the summit, and their rifles and

machine-guns could pepper much of its surface.

But that meant little in so far as the impending

assault was concerned, since the Germans

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Major-General David Watson, the peacetime militia officer who commanded the 4th Division in war. [LAC PA 2116]

Abandoned German trenches.[LAC PA 1150]

An enemy gun positiondestroyed by the artillery bombardment. [LAC PA 992]


would only be minimally exposed to it.The

enemy’s strongpoints boasted overhead cover

(sometimes of concrete) and his entrenchments

offered some protection from nearly every

direction.To get at him, the attackers — after a

full day to rest, replenish, and regroup — would

have to cross open, gently-rising ground at the

base of the knoll and then fight their way, yard

by painful yard, up its carefully guarded slopes.

The infantry’s covering barrage would

only begin at 0500, but during the night both

the Pimple and the German communication

trenches around Givenchy were shelled by

a large proportion of the corps’ medium and

heavy batteries, with additional support

from the British on their left.

Private William Kentner of the 46th Battalion

recollected being ‘awakened about two o’clock

and given a drink of hot soup and some biscuits.’*

We then filed out in the order in

which we were to ‘go over’.They issued

us with picks and shovels, which we

carried on our backs stuck down behind

our equipment. It was a cold night with

a mass of flying clouds, behind which the

moon shone occasionally. Artillery

activity had subsided, though one could

still hear the crash of a bursting

‘minnie’ or the dull roar of our ‘heavies’.

The trenches were so pounded we

were compelled to walk on top.... It was

damnably hard work — making our

way through that mud and water.Then

the enemy detected us! Up went his

flares, lighting everything about us. His

rifles and machine guns opened up, and

his persistent but ill-directed fire forced

us take cover in the mire of the shell holes.

We read in the British official history, written

in the 1930s, that ‘heavy machine-gun and rifle

fire swept No-man’s-land’, but ‘it passed high

over the trenches’ at 4 a.m. How different these

things appear to the fearful infantryman at the

time and the urbane historian at his desk, years

later. Nevertheless, by 4:15 ‘all were reported

in position.’

As it had been on the 9th, the weather was

unusually miserable for April and once again

that would work to the Canadians’ advantage.

Once again, too, Kentner’s unsophisticated

account gives a better feel for the occasion

than the more polished prose of the historian.

The clouds overhead had now

become dense, and snow was beating

down on us. For half an hour we

lay shivering in the mud and water,

but this wait caused the enemy to

relax his fear. Conditions soon became

normal, permitting us to rise from

our damp and repulsive shelters

and proceed to our jumping-off

positions.

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* It has been claimed by some historians that troopsabout to attack were encouraged to be half-drunk orworse, but the issue of rum seems to have dependedupon the personal prejudices of commanding officers.


Canadian “Emma Gees” – a nickname derived from the initial letter of machine-gunners – on top of the ridge prepare to repel any German counter-attack. [LAC PA 1079]

“The whole plain of Douai lay at the Canadians’feet. “In the foreground is Givenchy-en-Gohelle and the skyline of Lens, with its mines and factories,can be glimpsed in the distance. [DND 0-1830]


At 4:50 a.m. the barrage intensified as all the

siege guns and heavy howitzers of two corps

were brought to bear. Ten minutes later the field

guns joined in.

Just as morning began to break we

heard the rattle of many machine-guns

and swish of thousands of bullets over

our heads....At once we stepped forward

toward that crashing wall of bursting

explosives which was our barrage on the

enemy front position.Almost at the

same instant, the snowstorm increased

in intensity. Great huge flakes were

beating down upon us and directly into

the face of the enemy.

We had hardly started when we

began to have casualties.A man on my

right dropped — another close by on

my left went down — another barely

three paces away let out a fearful yell

and went sprawling in the mud.As we

neared their front line, we were greeted

by stick-bombs [hand grenades] which

took effect but didn’t stop us. In a

moment we were in the front line.The

bay I jumped into was occupied by

four Germans — all dead.

The wind-driven snow and sleet in their faces

effectively blinded many of the Germans, just

as it had done on 9 April.That was the only

unplanned element in the operation, and without

it the attackers might well have been decimated

wherever they lagged behind the barrage. The men

of the 46th did not lag but, even so, by the

end of the day the two companies had taken

108 casualties, about half their strength.

The 50th Battalion, in the middle, was in

place at 4:15 a.m. and went ‘over the bags’ at

forty-five minutes later. They tried desperately

to ‘lean’ on their barrage, but progress was unduly

hampered by mud that was knee deep or more

in many places.Slugging through it, in the dark and

under fire,was a nightmare in itself,but by 5:45 the

leading companies of the 50th had reached their

objectives with only ‘slight casualties.’ Lieutenant-

Colonel L.F. Page subsequently reported, without

any particular emphasis, that ‘fifteen prisoners

were sent back, but only four reached our lines.’

He added, with rather more enthusiasm, that

‘I cannot say too much in praise of all ranks under

my command during this operation.Their energy,

courage, cheerfulness and endurance, under the

most trying conditions, was wonderful.’

By 7:30, the 50th were consolidating well

forward,having advanced most of the way through

the Bois de Givenchy,‘which was fortunate, as the

enemy got the range of our trenches [i.e., those

German trenches that they were supposed to

occupy] very accurately and shelled it sic heavily’

for well over two hours. But the violent counter-

attack expected all day never came, and by

nightfall a company of the 102nd had come

forward to strengthen the line.

The 44th Battalion, meanwhile, were on the

right flank, closest to Vimy, and it was they who

were asked to take the Pimple proper.The going

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“Where the metalled surface still existed a deep coverage of mud narrowed the roadwayand prevented drainage....” Trying to bring a motorized anti-aircraft gun forward. [LAC PA 1095]

13 April 1917: jubilant Canadians, offfor a rest after the battle. [LAC PA 1267]


was difficult here as well, reducing the pace

of the attack to perhaps twenty metres

a minute — only two-thirds the rate of their

‘accompanying’ barrage — but ‘in spite of this,’

reported its commanding officer,‘the advance

was carried out steadily and mopping-up

thoroughly done.’ D Company, on the right,

encountered no enemy troops in the front

line of defences, but the ‘Dug-out line, beyond,

was found to be full of men.After some

fighting, fifty-odd prisoners were obtained here.’

Like the Calgarians, the Manitobans continued

their advance beyond the assigned objectives

(one soldier went past his by about a hundred

metres, because ‘in the snow and sleet, you

couldn’t recognize anything’) to a point where

they found better positions from which to

consolidate their gains. But feeling that their

right flank was open — elements of the

12th Brigade’s 73rd Battalion (soon to be

disbanded) had actually withdrawn, in

order, it was said, to give the 44th ‘a clear field

of advance’ — they sent out reconnaissance

parties to check on their neighbours.Their

doubts were properly justified; these

reconnaissances resulted in one officer’s

death and another’s being captured.

‘THE WHOLE PLAIN OF DOUAI LAY

AT THE CANADIANS’ FEET’

By mid-afternoon on 12 April the storm had

passed, the sun was shining, and the Canadians

on the Pimple could see the unspoiled lands to

the north and east.

From the crest the whole plain of

Douai lay at the Canadians’ feet.The

vista was one of peaceful looking villages,

nestling in gren woods, of prosperous

towns on the far horizon, from whose

high chimney stacks poured clouds of

smoke, of railways over which trains

were still travelling.The whole fertile

plain was seared with roads, and the

roads were alive with movement.

It would have been nice if they had been

able to taste the full fruits of victory and continue

the advance while the enemy was still in relative

disarray, but understandably they were now

pretty well exhausted, perhaps emotionally as

much or more than physically; and, it will be

remembered, there were no Canadian reserves.

It was evident, moreover, that nothing

in the nature of a pursuit, nor any

operation of consequence, could be

contemplated until artillery and

ammunition could cross the shell-torn

battlefield.The original main roads

were the only practicable routes, and

these had been partially destroyed

by months of bombardment; in some

places mines had been blown below

them, leaving great waterlogged

craters.Where the metalled surface

still existed a deep covering of

mud narrowed the roadway and

prevented drainage, so that long

stretches were indistinguishable

from the ground on either side.

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Springtime comes even to battlefields. A Canadian officer takes a few moments to pick flowers – not poppies, in this case – growing in profusion among the wire. [DND 0-597]

King George V, with Generals Horne and Currie, surveys the Vimy battlefield. Interesting that Currie, the tallest of the three, chose to walk on the “duck boards,” while the King preferred the ground and Horne respectfully followed suit. [LAC PA 1502]


The open country itself was impassable.

The remains of wire entanglements, the

shell craters and broken-in trenches

prevented any movement except on foot,

and even pack-mules, which took

forward most of the supplies for the

front-line battalions, had to use the

roadways. Although over five thousand

men had at once been set to work on

the reconstruction and repair of these

vital road communications, some

days would be needed to make them

passable for heavy traffic.

On that note the battle for Vimy Ridge

ended. Canadian casualties totalled just over

ten-and-a-half thousand, of which three thousand,

five hundred were killed or died of wounds.

No figures are established for German losses,

which, augmented by the four thousand taken

prisoner, were probably very similar to the

Canadian figure, and much higher as a percentage

of those involved in the battle.

BRITISH AND FRENCH ATTACKS

With all his Vimy positions irretrievably

lost, von Falkenhausen was withdrawing the

disorganized remnants of his divisions from the

foot of the ridge. Leisurely — because, as we

have noted, they could do nothing else —

the Canadians followed up, to the Avion-

Méricourt-Oppy line, a couple of kilometres

in front of the prepared reserve positions

of the so-called Drocourt-Quéant ‘switch’ that

tied the older northern reserve positions of

the Wotan Stellung to Ludendorff’s new

Siegfried Stellung. ‘The consequences of a break

through of 12 to 15 kilometres wide and 6 or

more kilometres deep are not easy to meet,’

Ludendorff confided to his readers in 1919.

‘In view of the heavy losses in men, guns and

ammuntion resulting from such a break through,

colossal efforts are needed to make good the

damage.... Many days had to pass before a new

line could really be formed and consolidated.’

It will be remembered, however, that the

object of the Canadian attack had been to

secure the flank of Sir Edmund Allenby’s Third

Army, attacking down the valley of the Scarpe;

that operation being, in turn, a subsidiary (and

diversionary) element of a much greater French

attack away to the south, between Soissons and

Reims. Unfortunately, despite the Canadians’

success,Allenby could make little headway. The

Germans immediately to the south of the

ridge eased back, in order to avoid too sharp

an angle developing in their line, and then

began to resist more and more tenaciously.

The further one moved south from the Vimy

ridge, the more the depth of British penetration

diminished, so that after a month of hard fighting

the enemy had given up no more than one to

two kilometres of ground where the front lines

crossed the Scarpe. Another month saw a further

British advance matching that of the Canadians

which extended south to the Sensée valley — at

a cost of nearly a hundred thousand casualties

altogether. And along that line the Third Army

stopped.

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As for the great French offensive in the

south, involving one and a quarter million men

and seven thousand guns, it was an utter failure.

Beginning on 16 April, Nivelle sacrificed a tenth

of those men in five terrible days. Such crude

and fruitless butchery brought on widespread

mutinies in the French armies and Nivelle was

replaced by Général Henri Pétain, whose first

task was to suppress the mutinies, and second,

to restore the morale of his troops.

That would take until the spring of 1918,

and in the meantime Sir Douglas Haig would be

called upon to keep the enemy fully occupied

and off Pétain’s back. He did that primarily at

Passchendaele, where, in November, the

Canadian Corps under Lieutenant-General Sir

Arthur Currie would do another ‘great thing

together’. And then would come, at Amiens, in

the late summer of 1918, the first of those

‘Hundred Days’ (and one that Ludendorff would

call ‘the black day of the German army’) in

which the Canadian Corps would do so many

great things together — bursting through the

Drocourt-Quéant switch, crossing the Canal du

Nord, breaking the Marcoing line, re-capturing

Cambrai and the advance to Mons — that it would

be widely recognised as the spearhead of

Entente victory and win Canada a place at the

peace table.

But that is another story.

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CHAPTER V


CHAPTER V

THE VIMY MEMORIAL

Monuments to those who died at Vimy Ridge

were being put up within days of the battle,

the gunners and the 44th Battalion being first

off the mark.These were unofficial structures,

of course, heartfelt but of questionable artistic

merit and erected without any formal permission.

Their construction rather upset the French

government,which was in the process of working

out arrangements with its allies for the

establishment of permanent memorials once

the war was over.

When these arrangements were worked

out — for cemetaries as well as memorials — there

was no doubt as to where the main Canadian

memorial should go. Although the Canadian

Corps, as the spearhead of the Entente armies,

had, by then, fought and won other, more

portentous battles,Vimy Ridge (and Easter

Monday, 1917) had a significance all their

own. In 1922 the French ceded to Canada in

perpetuity 91.18 hectares [250 acres] on

the crest of the ridge for a memorial park.

In Ottawa,the federal government had

already set up a Canadian Battlefields

Memorial Commission under Major General S.C.

Mewburn, Minister of Militia and Defence

1916-1919, to supervise and conduct a design

competition for a memorial to be erected on

the highest point of the ridge. From one

hundred and sixty submissions, the committee

eventually selected that made by Walter S. Allward,

a Toronto sculptor.

It was a massive project. Some 11,000 tonnes

of concrete and masonry were required for the

base, and another 5,500 tonnes of stone for the

two pylons and sculptured figures.The Vimy

Memorial would be built to last. After an extensive

search for the best materials and an examination

of the remains of a 3rd Century palace, built for

the Roman emperor Diocletian, that were still

standing (and showing few signs of erosion) near

Split, in present-day Croatia,Allward located

and re-opened the quarry once used by

Diocletian’s masons.

The stone was transported to France, where

the actual carving would take place.Work on the

Memorial began in 1925, and was completed

eleven years later at a cost of $1.5 million — a

staggering sum for the time. Standing on the

summit of Hill 145, its base measures just under

75 metres across, while the two pylons

representing Canada and France, are each

forty-five metres high. Among the twenty sculpted

figures that adorn the Memorial are Peace,

Truth, Knowledge, Justice, Sacrifice, and — the

largest single figure, carved from a single

thirty-tonne block — a personified Canada

brooding over the graves of her dead.

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On the stone base are carved the names

of the regiments that fought for Vimy Ridge, and

those of 11,285 Canadian soldiers posted as

‘missing, presumed dead’ in France during the

whole war. (Those who fell in Flanders are

listed on the British memorial at Ypres.) The

known dead, of course, are commemorated

individually on the crosses that mark their

graves, wherever they may be.

In the notable absence of Prime

Minister Mackenzie King, the Vimy Memorial was

dedicated on 26 July 1936 by King Edward VIII.

Ernest Lapointe, the Prime Minister’s Quebec

lieutenant, C.G. Power, Minister of Pensions

and National Health (who had been severely

wounded on the Somme and thus missed

the glory days of the Canadian Corps), and

Ian Mackenzie,Minister of Militia and Defence,

represented the Canadian government.Wartime

Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden and Lady

Currie, Sir Arthur’s widow, were also present,

together with nearly ten thousand veterans.

In dedicating the Memorial, Edward VIII

declared:

We raise this memorial to

Canadian warriors. It is an inspired

expression in stone, chiselled by

a skilful Canadian hand, of Canada’s

salute to her fallen sons. It marks

the scene of feats of arms which history

will long remember and Canada

can never forget.And the ground it

covers is the gift of France to Canada.

All the world over there are battlefields,

the names of which are written indelibly

on the pages of our troubled human story.

It is one of the consolations which time

brings that the deeds of valour done on

those battlefields long survive the quarrels

which drove the opposing hosts to

conflict.Vimy will be one such name.

But the diary of one veteran, written in a

kind of off-hand fashion that modestly reflected,

perhaps, the fact that he was one of those being

honoured, probably put things best.

A vast throng of people here. In

addition to Canadians there are streams

of natives coming to Vimy from all

directions and in addition there are

some 2,000 pilgrims from England....

Thousands of French war veterans are

here also. Airplanes make a spectacular

flight over the crowd and over the

monument, flying in formation.... Speeches

well heard through the amplifiers.

Unveiling by King well done.

Approximately half a million Canadians — out

of the six hundred thousand who enlisted —

served in France and Flanders during the First

World War. Fifty-three thousand of them were

killed in action or died of wounds or disease,

and some thousands of others who survived

were so badly mutilated, physically or emotionally,

as to be dead in worldly terms. One might

hazard a guess that around four hundred and

forty thousand veterans of the Canadian Corps

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The 44th Battalion Memorial erectedon the Pimple. [DND PMR 92-006]

The 1st Canadian Division Memorialstill stands on the south end of theridge. [LAC PA 4504]

Sir Arthur Currie at the dedication of the ArtilleryMemorial, near the site subsequently occupied by Walter Allwards “two greatpylons.” [LAC PA 2390]


whole enough in mind and body to re-integrate

into the mainstream of Canadian life eventually

returned home.

They brought back with them a new

concept of nationhood based on their war

experiences and, consciously or unconsciously,

began to spread it across the land.To take

just one example, there were at least two hundred

working journalists among them whose thoughts

and attitudes, conditioned by the comradeship of

war, could not do other than ‘Canadianize’ their

readers when they returned to their pre-war trade.

Among them were H.C. Crowell of the Halifax

Chronicle and E.E. Dennis of the Herald; Henri

Chassé of Quebec’s L’Événement; John S.Lewis of

the Montreal Star and Hercule Barré of La Patrie;

E.W.B. Morrison of the Ottawa Citizen; G.G. Nash

and Beresford Topp of the Toronto Mail and

Empire, W.F. Edgecomb of the News, Jaffray Eaton

of the Globe and Gregory Clark of the Star

(and later the nationally distributed Weekend

magazine); Gordon Southam of the Hamilton

Spectator; S.G.Webb of the Winnipeg Tribune;

E.C.Whitehead of the Brandon Sun; Harris

Turner of the Saskatoon Star ... and all the way

west to R.J. Burde with the Port Alberni News.

Some of them subsequently went into the new

medium of radio, as well, and in both media

‘new blood’ which had also been on Vimy Ridge

joined them over the next dozen years.

Some veterans went back to teaching,

or took it up, at every level from elementary

school to post-graduate university — as in

the case of historians A.R.M. Lower and Frank

Underhill (some of whose words have provided

the epigraph for this book). Others turned to

business, law, medicine, the church. Some went

into industry, mining, or construction, and

others, like Dr. R.J. Manion (who has also been

quoted in these pages), C.G. Power and A.G.L.

McNaughton, into politics and/or government.

Manion, a Conservative, became

(briefly) leader of the opposition in 1938

but lost his parliamentary seat in 1940.

Power, a Liberal, was associate Minister of

National Defence through much of the

Second World War, resigning in late 1944

when he concluded that Prime Minister

Mackenzie King had broken his word on

the conscription issue.The Minister of

National Defence during Power’s tenure

as associate was that nit-picking, dry-as-dust

lawyer, J.L. Ralston, who had been with the

85th Battalion at Vimy but recorded no

colourful comment to be cited in this work.

McNaughton, the scientist/gunner,

stayed in the post-war army and rose to

become chief of the General Staff, 1929-1935,

when he was seconded to serve as president

of the National Research Council. Recalled

to the colours on the outbreak of war, he

commanded, in turn, the 1st Canadian Infantry

Division, I Canadian Corps and First Canadian

Army, 1939-1943. Subsequently he was Ralston’s

successor as Minister of National Defence,

1944-1945, president of the Atomic Energy

Board, 1946-1948, Canada’s permanent

representative at the United Nations, 1948-1949,

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The base of the Memorial under construction on the summit of Hill 145 in 1928. [DND PMR 91-011]

The Memorial in 1936, awaiting its formal dedication by King Edward VIII in the presence of some ten thousand veterans. [DND VP-3]

“Canada” mourning herdead. [DND VP-9]


and a member of the Canada-United States

Permanent Joint Board on Defence,1950-1959 and

the International Joint Commission 1950-1962.

E.L.M. Burns was another who stayed in the

army, commanding I Canadian Corps in Italy

during the Second World War and, in the post-war

era, distinguishing himself as a commander of

United Nations’ forces.Victor Odlum went back

to civil life, as publisher of the Vancouver Daily

Star from 1924 to 1932, and then sat on the board

of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the

1930s. In May 1940 he was given command of the

2nd Canadian Division, that appointment being

terminated on the grounds of age (he was 61) at

the end of the following year. He subsequently

served as high commissioner to Australia,

ambassador to China and ambassador to Turkey.

When Sir Julian Byng was promoted to

command a British army in June 1917,* Arthur

Currie was given command of the Canadian

Corps. Shortly afterwards he was knighted

by King George V, finishing the war as Lieutenant-

General Sir Arthur Currie — and it was largely

Currie’s integrity, painstaking professionalism and

dedicated ‘Canadianism’ that carried the Corps to

its subsequent victories. As Inspector-General, he

was (briefly) the professional head of the post-war

army, but his plans for a powerful peacetime

force were thwarted by political realities. In 1920

he resigned, to become chancellor of McGill

University until his death in 1933.

Byng made no great mark as an army

commander. (Had he reached his ceiling, or

were British soldiers less responsive to his

leadership than Canadians had been?) In 1926

he was appointed governor-general of Canada,

an appointment greeted with enthusiasm by

‘Byng boys’ all across the Dominion. He soon

ran afoul of Prime Minister Mackenzie King,

however, in the King-Byng constitutional

crisis of 1926. Finding his position intolerable

in the context of a King administration, he soon

resigned and returned to England, to become

commissioner of the London’s Metropolitan

Police, 1928-1931. He died in 1935.

After a career in the peacetime army, Georges

Philias Vanier, who had been a major with the

22nd Battalion at Vimy Ridge and subsequently

lost a leg in battle, became Canadian minister

to France, 1930-1940, ambassador to France,

1944-1953, and Canada’s second Canadian-born

governor-general, 1959-1967.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF CANADA

Many thousands of others, whose marks on

history would never be so obvious as those

mentioned above, came home and went about

the business of making a living on farms and

railways, in factories, mines and power plants,

remembering to their dying day that they

were Canadians first, and Maritimers, Quebeckers,

Manitobans or British Columbians second, even

if they were sometimes reluctant to express it

quite so unambiguously.They came back to a

very different country from the one they had

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* His aged opponent at Vimy, Generaloberst vonFalkenhauser, was appointed governor of occupiedBelgium shortly after the battle.


Canadian Jack Harris, 4th CMR.

His enemy: two German soldiers captured on 9 April 1917. [LAC PA 1106]

What’s it all about? A local family. [LAC PA 68]


left, and a society which was changing — and

would continue to change — with unbelievable

rapidity compared with one they had known

before enlisting.

A rural, agricultural nation was rapidly

becoming an urban, industrialized one (although

small-town Canada was in no danger of

disappearing) and better communications

were enabling Canadians to learn more

about each other than ever before.The

populations of Montreal and Toronto had

each doubled between 1915 and 1918,

while that of Hamilton — steel town — had

risen by 150 per cent.The value of iron and

steel production had increased from $120 million

to $443 million in the same period, while

Canada was becoming — for a few brief years —

the second largest producer of automobiles

in the world.

The first commercial radio licence

was issued in 1919 and by 1928 there would

be sixty stations on the air. Already, in 1920,

coast-to-coast telephonic communication was

possible. Rail travel was becoming relatively

cheaper and annual holidays the rule rather

than the exception. All these things worked

towards ‘Canadianizing’ the country.

In the 1930s the Great Depression would

clamp down on economic prosperity but,by then,

travel had become engrained in the Canadian

psyche.The veterans of the Canadian Corps still

reminisced in Legion halls on Friday nights, and

marched to local cenotaphs every 11 November

to honour fallen comrades. Like Greg Clark

(writing in the Weekend magazine of

13 November 1967), they had ‘experienced my

first full sense of nationhood’ on Vimy Ridge,

and they still remembered themselves as

Canadians who had done ‘great things together’.

Let us end this book recalling the man

with whom we began it — Private Jack Harris

of the 4th CMR, who was (it must now be

admitted) the grandfather of one of the authors.

Jack was wounded twice (and gassed as well, on

the first occasion) before the war ended — once,

quite seriously, at Passchendaele and lightly

again in the spring of 1918.When the fighting

was done, he returned home to ‘Lou and the

kids’ (one of them, in turn, would be wounded

twice while serving with the Queen’s Own

Rifles of Canada over the summer of 1944) and

to his pre-war trade of bricklaying. He laid

bricks for Maple Leaf Gardens (the conception

of another Canadian Corps veteran, Conn

Smythe) among other buildings, and continued

to work until he was seventy-five.

He joined the 4th CMR regimental association

and the Canadian Corps Association (but not

the Legion), nevertheless rarely speaking about

his wartime experiences within the family.

Perhaps only to his grandson, studying military

history at McMaster University, did he confide,

on occasion, that it was on Easter Monday 1917

that he began to think of himself as a Canadian.

The ‘Last Post’ sounded for him in 1972.

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What’s it all about? The main street of Vimy before the war and after the battle. [DND PMR 91-012 and 013]


Twenty-eight years before Jack died, and

twenty-seven after he trudged up Vimy Ridge,

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Stacey, then the

official historian of the Canadian Army Overseas,

was one of a group of officers travelling

across France in the train of another victorious

Canadian army. He recalled the occasion

when addressing the Canadian Historical

Association in Canada’s centennial year.

As we drove near A’rras we suddenly

saw before us, catching the sun high on

the distant northern horizon, two great

pylons; and we knew we were looking

at Vimy Ridge.A quarter of an hour later

we were standing before the memorial.

I think we all felt a degree of emotion as

we read the plain words that tell the story.

The Canadian Corps, on April 9, 1917,

with four divisions in line on a front of

four miles attacked and captured this

ridge.’ Men who fought that day recalled

fifty years later that it had been a

moment of great national pride, that

as they looked out across the Douai

Plain from the conquered Ridge they

felt that their country had come of

age. If a single milestone is needed to

mark progress on the road to national

maturity, one might do much worse

than nominate that famous Easter

Monday.

A little the worse for wear — for western

European air has become much more polluted

and acidic since the Second World War — on

a fine day those ‘two great pylons’ still gleam

whitely in the evening sun.

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A NOTE ON SOURCES

This account of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, set in the context of the

history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, is founded upon the

relevant volumes of the British and German official histories, and on

Colonel G.W.L. Nicholson’s official volume on the Canadian

Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919 (Ottawa, 1962), now unfortunately

out of print in both official languages.Those narratives have been

supplemented with archival material from the National Archives of

Canada and the Department of National Defence’s Directorate of

History. Battalion and regimental histories were also consulted.

The ‘colour commentary’ comes from a variety of published

diaries, letters and memoirs — mostly out of print — and unpublished

reminiscences also to be found in the NAC and at DHist. A number

of mongraphs on the battle have been published in English — Pierre

Berton’s Vimy (Toronto, 1986) probably being the most easily

acquired — but there is nothing in French beyond the few paragraphs

in Colonel Nicholson’s work, G.F.G. Stanley’s Nos Soldats: L’Histoire

militaire du Canada de 1604 à nos Jours (Montréal, 1980) — also

available in English as Canada’s Soldiers — and the regimental

history of the R22eR.Worthwhile older works in English include

Kenneth Macksey, The Shadow of Vimy Ridge (Toronto, 1965),

which looks at the significance of the ridge in the Duke of

Marlborough’s campaigns, and in the Battle of France 1940, as

well as the various battles fought there during the First World

War,Alexander McKee’s Vimy Ridge (London, 1966) and D.E.

MacIntyre’s Canada At Vimy (Toronto, 1967).


TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS7

PREFACE11

CHAPTER IPilgrim’s Progress

15

CHAPTER IIThe Path to Vimy Ridge

49

CHAPTER IIIEaster Monday

83

CHAPTER IVThe End of the Battle

121

CHAPTER VThe Vimy Memorial

139

A NOTE ON SOURCES149


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